Sonic Symphony
by Scarabbug
Summary: A series of song inspired fanfictions. Not Songfics. Set mainly in the Sonic X Universe but some can be viewed as game-based. Multiple characters. Chapter 42: Shadow lives with two sets of memories and is only half certain which are real...
1. Unbound

**These are not songfics. Let me just get that fact out of the way right now. They're short stories **_**inspired**_** by songs. I discovered Scribbler trying out a similar idea with the Kingdom Hearts Videogame series, and decided I'd like to give it a shot. **

**Standard disclaimers apply. Reviews and concrit are both appreciated. Oh and uh... if anyone has a better name than "Sonic Symphony"? I'd appreciate the suggestion. **

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_**1. Unbound, By Robbie Robertson. **_

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Honestly, he never knew exactly what Chaos Control is all about.

He understands the basics, yeah: It's powerful, and it glows, and he can take apart Chaos Creatures with it, but he's never been able to understand exactly why _he_ has it.

'No no no no _no_ don't you dare! Don't you even _think_ about it!'

She's completely off the mark there. He's _not_ thinking about it. Not at all. He hardly ever thinks about _anything_ so why should this be any different?

He isn't thinking about it. He's just going to_ do it_.

'Stupid... this is _stupid_ you're always rushing into things like this, Sonic! For once in your life, _stop_!'

'Amy—'

'No! _Listen_ to me!'

'Amy, come on—'

'idiot, you're an idiot, I won't let you do it I won't I won't I won't!'

Probably better _not_ to listen to her. Maybe he can hang onto her for a few seconds longer, though. Or she can hang onto _him_, gripping so tight that her gloves are leaving imprints in his arm.

...She'll let go when he tells her to.

It's not like he has any choice. Not really. He figures he's got about a minute or so left before the Chaos Energy runs out and he's reduced back to his ordinary form. It'll take just over that long for Eggman's portal to reach its maximum charge level before... what was it that Tails had said? Oh yeah, before it "_rained great chunks of the other world down on top of them like meteorites destroying everyone and everything who happened to be in range_." That was a helluva lot of world chunks and a helluva lot more people, and...

Well. They had to use _something_ to block the energy flow, right?

He knows this. But he's waiting a bit before he has to tell her what she already knows. He's the fastest guy alive so a minute (_fifty seconds, forty seconds, thirty_...) is pretty much nothing to him. He's only staying still because she's holding him, and...

His Super form is _perfect _for that. Like a living battery capable of disrupting whatever he put himself in the way of. Like a short circuit. Tails thinks that he doesn't understand those kinds of things, and Amy knows he understands, but never thought he's do something like _this_ with it. But they're both wrong. He does, and he will.

'I'm sorry.'

'No you're not!'

He opens his mouth. Stops. Closes it again and rethinks what he's going to say _without _the lies.Behind them, the circular surface of the portal shifts and crackles, like it's trying to move from one world to another. The cavern around them shudders like it's going to break apart and Sonic tries to think of a really bad word that he can use for Eggman. '...Okay, maybe not for what I'm _doing_, but I didn't wanna make you cry.'

'I won't let you go.'

'What if I say I' m sorry like I mean it?'

'I don't care! You'll _die_! I'm not letting go of you

'Simple stuff, Amy –_everyone_ dies, if you don't.'

'Then... then, you'll have to drag me in there with you!'

Her grip tightens, but that's okay. He knows she'll do anything for him. He's counting on the fact that she will. 'I need you to find Tails and Cream and get outta here. _This_ place will blow up, even if the rest of the world doesn't. You want _them_ to die too?'

She looks at him. Her eyes are large and bright and angry. 'That... No... That's not _fair_!'

'Nah, I guess it isn't.' Doesn't stop it being true, though, and she knows that.

The portal glistens, and he can see the other world beyond it, contracting and expanding the way their world is, sucked inwards like water down a really huge plughole.

He _hates_ water.

It's almost like it's calling him, anyway. Like it knows exactly what to do. Or more like, exactly what to do _wrong_ the second he touches it. He can hear the Chaos talking to him. It says "_ready_", and he guesses that maybe drowning like _that_ –in golden chaos rather than blue H2O– wouldn't be so bad.

'Let go, Amy.'

'No...' she says, but she doesn't sound as sure of herself this time.

'I guess you'll have to lose, Amy Rose. I'm sorry.'

And then she looks at him. She doesn't smile. He didn't expect that. The portal glows and glows until he's not sure which is brighter – that or his own fur, glistening gold with Chaos.

(_Fifteen seconds... fourteen... thirteen..._)

'You're a... a jerk, Sonic the Hedgehog,' Amy Rose says, as soon as she can manage it. 'You're a rotten, stupid, idiotic jerk, and I _love_ you.'

And then she lets him go. Just like he knew she would.

* * *

"_Oh nothing is forgotten  
Only left behind  
Wherever I am  
She leads me down  
Unbound."_

* * *


	2. Blue World

**These are not songfics. Let me just get that fact out of the way right now. They're ****short stories **_**inspired**_** by songs.**

**Standard disclaimers apply. Reviews and concrit are both appreciated. **

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_**2. His World (Blue World Prelude Mix) Lee Brotherton. **_

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They cheer for him when he appears. Which isn't really anything special. They _always_ do. Sometimes they chant his name as well, remembering how much it's helped them in the past. But things aren't the way they used to be. One time, they cheered for him as a hero, and now, the people of Station Square sound more like they're trying to summon a God. An _angry_ God, at that. One that can turn cities to dust and sweep up everything in Chaos Energy.

This sounds pretty crazy to Tails and his friends, who know Sonic the Hedgehog better than any of the other people in this crazy city pretend to. Even Knuckles, who is stood right next to Tails amidst the crowds, face drawn, waiting to see what Sonic will do next.

But _looking_ at it...

That's a little different. Because the blue is gone –there's nothing of Sonic's trademark colour hanging in the sky right now. Just gold –bright and blinding, like a Sonic-shaped sun. And if that Chaos being isn't afraid of him then it's not too bright, because it really _should_ be.

Chaos used to be a God too, after all. Or so (Knuckles) the stories said.

Tails hears people saying Sonic's name in vain sometimes, when they're really angry. He hears children cursing, just the way Sonic does when, they're playing Catch the Hedgehog. And this probably wouldn't be quite so worrying if Tails didn't know (see, feel) how much Sonic is changing lately, too, and...

...He doesn't think of himself as a God. Not really.

Maybe the _advocate_ of one, when he's feeling really whimsical and weirdly thoughtful about stuff. Sonic's never been big on stuff like that. Chaos Control has always been just this "really cool thing" that he can do. Sometimes he shows off with it just for the hell of it, or because he's bored. Goes out in storms looking for lightning and the like. Amy yells at him for getting struck, but Sonic just brushes away her anger and concern the way he brushes off the chaos-and-thunder generated static in his fur.

It doesn't matter that when Sonic stops criminals wielding super powered robots in the street they always seem to stop fighting and sometimes they even fall to their knees and ask for forgiveness and...

Sonic always gives it to them. Forgiveness, that is. Which annoys Knuckles, Tails knows, because the Echidna doesn't think that anyone should do that. Tails doesn't know quite what to think about it himself, but he always feels this funny feeling in his stomach when he heard Sonic saying things like "it's okay. I forgive ya" in this really weird voice that doesn't sound anything like him. Now it's not 

that Sonic's going crazy or anything. He's not threatening to hurt people or demanding that people do stuff for him the way Eggman would. It's just...

...It's weird. And kind of worrying.

People wonder, sometimes aloud, just where he's getting all that power. Does it come purely from the Chaos Emeralds? That can't be so, Tails thinks, because Chaos is the Power Enriched by the Heart. It's more than just a lot of energy contained in lots of pretty stones. Different people use it in different ways. The Chaos Gods use them to destroy while Sonic...

Well. He uses them to destroy too. But in a different way. A softer way. An almost _kinder_ way. It's odd seeing the way he's started reaching out and taking hold of them, almost like he's embracing the monsters as they fall to pieces. Like that's another kind of silent forgiveness that Sonic has gotten in the habit of handing out, much to Knuckles chagrin and Tails' discomfort and Amy's outright _worry_.

People are doing the same thing that they always do now as they watch the monster falling about in Super Sonic's arms whispering, muttering, praying, asking all the same questions they always ask, with no clear answers in sight.

Super Sonic winks at him.

Tails can see him do it, bright as gold, even from so far below. Maybe because Sonic _wants_ him to see. Like he's manipulating all the Chaos in the air so that Tails can see him clearly. And then all of a sudden he can _hear_ him clearly, too, talking to him, just like he's stood right there besides him.

'_Coming up here, little buddy?'_

Tails steps backwards. No one else is aware of it. They're still clapping at the sky and cheering and laughing, chinking glasses in coffee shops and smiling at each other.

'_Come on, Tails. Nice view up here. You've gotta see this. Our world's so _huge_; and we saved it together.'_

Tails isn't quite sure how that's true. All he did was stand around and watch while Super Sonic did the work and all the people cheered. He didn't even cheer himself, Tails thinks.

There's a comforting presence, like a hand across his shoulder. _'Hey, that's okay. You'll help next time. You're inside of me anyway, all the time. You and Amy and Cream and Knucklehead there. We can do _anything_, right?'_

Tails pauses, mouth open, thinking his answer without saying it aloud.

'_Exactly. So then? Come on, pal. You don't even need to run back for the Tornado. I can make it quick.' _

Tails doesn't flinch when he realises what (Super) Sonic just did. He manages to answer with a simple smile and a shake of the head.

Sonic's presence shrugs and lets him go noticeably, and Tails tries not to shiver.

The next time that the Chaos creature attacks, Sonic makes the battle twice as quick and a good deal less forgiving. And Tails remains on the ground this time, too, milling with the cheering crowds, watching, listening and waiting for Chaos to begin all over again.

Just another ordinary day in Station Square.

* * *

_"You cannot run you cannot hide  
'Cause we can see your strength inside  
and if you fall, if you may falter  
We'll be with you that will not alter_

_He can see and he can feel without one touch  
It becomes surreal but it's true  
The power lives inside of you  
Inside of you, yeah."_


	3. I'll Try

**These are not songfics. Let me just get that fact out of the way right now. They're short stories **_**inspired**_** by songs. I discovered Scribbler doing something similar with the Kingdom Hearts Videogame series, and decided I'd like to give it a shot. **

**Standard disclaimers apply. Reviews and concrit are both appreciated. **

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_**3. I'll Try, Jesse McCartney, (The "Return to Neverland" Soundtrack). **_

* * *

Tails isn't all that sure exactly when he grew up.

He knows that it probably didn't happen _too_ suddenly, when he wasn't expecting it. It was gradual enough that he didn't notice (too wrapped up in tools and machines and the X Tornado's repair jobs and he _really_ had to get that mecha's left side schematics up to scratch...), but still a lot faster than it should have been. It mainly occured somewhere between the ages of eight and twelve, he figures. After he met Sonic. It's in the middle of that period where things began to get complicated.

Tails knows that he's smart. Smarter than a lot of the other kids and creatures around him. Smarter than anyone – even Sonic– sometimes realise.

Tails thinks a lot. He's _good_ at that. He's thought about things long and hard enough to know that Robotnik is one big, scary guy underneath all of that bravado. (And even if he _wasn't_, he's _still_ got a bunch of awful weapons that Tails really, really doesn't want to ever feel the pinch of. And he has sometimes). Smart enough to know what hurts and what doesn't. To know when they should panic just a little, and exactly _how_ many volts it takes for a doomsday machine to disintegrate a moon, rationed against the number of Chaos Emeralds that machine is using at the time. He knows that he can take care of himself at a younger age than most people and...

He's _happy_ that he can do that. Really. He's happy that he's as in control of himself and his environment as he is. He's happy that he's not a burden on anybody else. That he can help save the world with all his smarts and skills and that nobody picks on him anymore –not just because they know who his friends are, but because they know who _he_ is, too.

But sometimes, Tails finds it a little difficult to do what he sees other kids doing. He can't see himself running about and drawing on sleeping people's faces like Charmy does, or baking cakes and decorating them with icing and flower crowns like Cream. Sometimes, Tails even wonders just how the heck Amy can put so much time and energy into chasing Sonic about the place, like there i_sn't_ some madman plotting and scheming far above them, planning to take other the world (again).

But then, she's asked _him_ similar questions about the amount of time he spends in the workshop.

Tails is lucky that Sonic's there really. because Sonic _dislikes_ all that technical, mechanical stuff just enough that he'll sometimes show up out of nowhere, drag Tails over to the Tornado and suggest that they go for a run (he means, of course, that _he'll _run, and Tails will hop in the jet and fly alongside him, following wherever Sonic wants to go –which is everywhere, all at once).

Sometimes it's better _not_ to think, Tails figures. Sometimes it's better to just hop in the X Tornado and take her across the dunes of a desert, or fly low over the ocean waves with Sonic clinging tightly to the left wing (it's always the left wing, too, force of habit, Tails, figures). To stay airborne until dawn, or until your fuel runs low –whichever comes first (it's usually the dawn. Tails has designed the X tornado's engine capacity to maximum efficiency. He values these hours alone with his best friend too much to waste them by running out of fuel halfway.) Better to just smile and fly and laugh and try to do five loop the loops and interspersed barrel roles in one go without your best friend falling off your wing. The world feels... different to Tails during those times, with the wind cutting patterns in his fur and dragging at Sonic's quills.

That's what Sonic showed him. Because Sonic's like that. Sonic knows things that Tails, even with all his skills and smarts, knows fine well he wouldn't have realised otherwise: life's too short for worrying about a lot of stuff. The really important thing is to fly.

* * *

"_I am not a child now.  
I can take care of myself.  
I mustn't let them down now-  
Mustn't let them see me cry.  
I'm fine. __I'm fine. _

_I can finally see it.  
Now I have to believe:  
All those precious stories.  
All the world is made of faith,  
And trust,  
And pixie dust."_


	4. Montage

**These are not songfics. Let me just get that fact out of the way right now. They're short stories **_**inspired**_** by songs. I discovered Scribbler doing something similar with the Kingdom Hearts Videogame series, and decided I'd like to give it a shot. **

**A note for this fic: I always had a couple of issues with Earthia/Hearthia. Oh I **_**liked**_** her. I mean, she was clearly an emotional and capable leader. She did the best for her clan. Kept them together through terrible experiences. Maintained her dignity into maturation and beyond...**

**...Raised her youngest daughter to die. It's a tricky issue, you know? **

**Standard disclaimers apply. Reviews and concrit are both appreciated. **

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_**4. **_**_Inama Nushif (Montage), Brian Tyler,_**_** (The Children of Dune Soundtrack). **_

* * *

Cosmo doesn't believe that she had ever done anything particularly well in her life, until the day she met Sonic.

The daughter of the Seedrian clan leader (if it could still be called a clan) was not expected to do much _well_ –only consistently. Her clumsiness and awkward daydreaming never mattered to her sisters. She was to do her chores and count her growing blessings and visit mother every day, to sit in her branches and play games like any ordinary child. She had never been expected to fight, the way generations before her had. She had never known of such things. She was not like Starla who had watched her husband's body mutate and change before he died. She was not like Miss Aurora who watched all her children perish in the great forest fires of their home planet (and who spoils Cosmo and Galaxina enormously as a result).

Mother called Cosmo a late bloomer: Her Beautiful Child, Her Future. She called Cosmo all these things and more, without words, yet Cosmo heard them all. Love, as Cosmo knew it, was the feeling of soft leaves brushing against her cheeks and the smell of fresh sap and cool bark.

But that (as Sonic might say) was then, and this is now. The Metarex came and took the life she knew away from her; they took her mother, sisters and home, and revealed to her the stark, harsh truth of a universe that was filled with thorns.

It is only now, as she and her friends hang in the very depths of space at galactic coordinates 0,0,0, that Cosmo is beginning to understand precisely how and why she survived. It has nothing to do with the unwitting spy device concealed within her eyes and ears.

She is here to die, that much she knows. She feels it in her heart and mind and in the steadily spreading growth of her body. In the tickling sensation of blossoms opening. In the distant yet so near sound of Tails sobbing into the power cannon's controls.

It is only when she is asked to do this, to mature –as is the fate of all her species– and become their salvation, that Cosmo realises there is one thing in her life which she is now required to do perfectly. Her. _Cosmo_ _Earthia_, who has never done anything spectacular in her life, now knows that she is about to become the most beautiful thing in the galaxy. She will die, and she will become the rebirth of her species...

...Never again to feel sunlight in her hair and grass between her toes, Cosmo thinks. Never to sense the touch of Tails hand, or watch Chris, talking quietly to himself as he works on some complicated design, or hear Sonic laughing in the face of destruction.

She is not entirely sure why mother is asking this of her. But she understands why it _must_ be her, nonetheless. She wants to explain this to them, but all she can think of to say is "_don't worry about me, fire, don't worry about me, don't worry, fire, just fire, it'll be alright, just fire, it's over, it's all over now. _

'_I love you, Tails. Goodbye. Fire._"

And he does.

Long ago (or at least, it seems that way), Cosmo Earthia was born to save the galaxy. She knows her purpose. She knows that this is what she was always meant do, and she is happy. She wants her friends to know how happy she is as the light of the power cannon and Sonic's almost gentle violence tears into her new, strong body, Dark Oak beneath her.

She says goodbye again. Silently, and in a form unseen by any of them but Tails. She brushes unseen fingers against Chris's face and wipes the tears from Cream's eyes. She returns to Tails and kisses him, the way she has known other flesh-creatures to. It is a ritual of theirs, she thinks. One to show how much someone means to you.

She knows, in her heart, how much they mean to her. _That_ is why she will do this. That is why she will give up everything to save them. Why she will blossom and die and celebrate the incredible beauty of her purpose. Destiny has nothing to do with it.

In the farthest reaches of space, Cosmo finally does something perfect, and she is happy.

* * *

"_Hatt al-hudad (Through the tempest)  
Al-maahn al-baiid (be it deluge or sand)  
Ay-yah idare (A singular voice)  
Adamm malum (speaks through the torrent)_

_Kali bakka a tishuf ahatt (Sacrifice is her gift)  
Al hudad alman dali (one that cannot be equaled)..."_


	5. Gladiators

**These are not songfics. Let me just get that fact out of the way right now. They're short stories **_**inspired**_** by songs. I discovered Scribbler doing something similar with the Kingdom Hearts Videogame series, and decided I'd like to give it a shot. **

**No laughing at my taste in music please. Gladiators **_**rules**_**. So um... yeah, this one is set mid Metarex-Saga. Standard disclaimers apply. Reviews and concrit are both appreciated. Enjoy.**

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_**5. The Original "**_**_Gladiators" Theme, TV Theme Tunes. _**

* * *

Their people prayed to the stars for assistance, and the Gods arrived on their behalf.

They descended from the heavens one night, in a metal beast that could crush cities beneath its girth, to free them from the oppression of the life-stealing beasts.

Or so the stories said. The people of the Planet _Kismet_ would probably be the first to admit that they were a simple race with simple values and understandings. It was also true that these Gods of theirs were not exactly what anyone had expected. They were a great deal _smaller_ than Gods were traditionally supposed to be to be, for one thing. Still large, by Kismetian standards... but small, for gods.

'_Uh... Tails, buddy?'_

'_Yeah, Sonic?'_

'_What're all the tiny people doin' there?'_

'_You mean the ones down on the plateau? Oh, don't mind them, Sonic, they're just praying to you.' _

'_Oh right, praying... Wait _what_?' _

Less argumentative, also. In the stories of Kismet's yet more ancient people, the Gods of Blue were supposed to be great, celestial beings with ferocious tempers, whose quarrels amongst themselves could bring down citadels, move mountains and create valleys. They were creatures who, supposedly, yielded the power of all eternity in their hands and could snuff out a life with a click of their fingers.

These Gods however, were different to Kismet's expectations in that respect, also. They argued amongst themselves, certainly, but the closest thing to an earthquake that they created was when the pink female (who was assumed from her strength and forwardness to be the leader of the group) brought out a hammer twice the size of her body, which sent spasms of energy racing throughout the village when it hit. Impressive, yes –but not goddess-like. They appeared to prefer projectile weapons and throwing coconuts to snuffing out life with their fingertips, and not even the village Elders could work out what on Kismet the tallest one was doing with that walking metal contraption.

'_Uh... this might be a bad time, Tails, but the X Tornado's walk-mode is outs synch again.' _

'_Oh, damn it. Just sit tight, Chris I'll get to ya.' _

'_Ah! Never mind, I got it. There was someone prodding the circuitry.' _

'_Wait, wait, explain this to me one more time, Tails: they... think I'm a... God?'_

'_Well you did charge into their camp during a thunderstorm and defeat a troupe of fifty attacking Metarex single handed, Sonic. Plus, I don't think these guys have a developed as a society to the point at which they get cable TV yet.' _

'_Amy's right about that, Sonic... Hey, does this mean that they think you're all gods?' _

'_Yeah, including you, Chris. The guy I saw bowing to ya twenty minutes ago seemed to think so, anyway.'_

They are not entirely certain what the God with two tails signifies. Truthfully, the only stories of Kismetian culture which told of such creatures were stories of demons. But perhaps demons came in many forms and flavours, for this one was undoubtedly good natured, and responded quite calmly to their attempts at purification.

('_Tails, why are they decorating your extra tail with river mud?'_

'_...I have no idea.'_)

The green one was probably their secret weapon. A beautiful creature, no doubt destined for some future evolution, as was told in Kismet's old stories about how the forests had original come to be. If gods could possess such a thing as a _weapon_, of course (the Kismetians preferred to think of them as "tools"). It was she who located and drew back the power of the planet egg from their ever violent attackers. She who raised the earth and roots of the forest and brought them to her aid, and therefore proved to the Kismetians that, strange though their new gods might be, they were godly, nonetheless. Who else but a deity could have manipulated the life of the forest itself?

They tried to make the appropriate offerings to her, but their new gods were all remarkably humble in their refusal.

'_Um... no, no that's quite alright. Thank you very much, but I don't... really there's no need for you to... oh dear.' _

'_You okay Cosmo?'_

'_Quite fine, Tails, but could you help me explain to our new friends that I do not require any... assistants?' _

'_Aww, how come Cosmo gets given slaves?'_

'_Amy!'_

'_Sorry, sorry. Back to battle.'_

Clearly, there had to be some greater reasoning behind their actions than mere worship. To this day, many decades later, the Kismetians cannot understand why their saviours chose to come to them in the forms they did, yet their justice was swift and firm ("_Eat hammer, Metal-head!_") and sent their 

enemies back into the stars, never to return. Tales stirred for centuries after about the risks and values gendered by these beings and for long afterwards, festivals were held in the beings honour.

'_Oh man, we're _totally_ messing with an indigenous species' natural development here.' _

'_We're messing with a _what_ now?'_

'_Yeah I saw it on a science fiction program. Apparently interfering with a pre-space faring culture can have disastrous effects on their evolution.'_

'_Really? They seem harmless enough to me.' _

'_So were humans before we learned about metaphysics and automatic weapons. And just imagine what it would've been like if some alien had come down from the sky and _handed_ those things to us during the Stone Age.' _

'_Oh... well I guess they probably would've thought the aliens were gods...'_

'_Exactly. Not to mention caused some serious damage with weapons that they didn't even understa—'_

'_Yeah, yeah, less talk about aliens, more beating up Metarex, you two! In case you hadn't noticed, we "gods" are getting our behinds handed to us here.' _

The gods' waged battle against the invaders for what felt like many days and nights (though in retrospect, it seemed more like hours)before the enemy was driven back into the farthest reaches of the skies, never to return. Later generations questioned, of course, as they began their own space borne explorations and learned of things far more amazing than moving plant life and animal demons. Perhaps their one-time rescuers were not gods, as their grandparents stories supposed. But they had been saviours though, nonetheless.

The skirmish which occurred that day would be known for decades to come as "The _Battle of Blue Destiny_", by the superstitious people of the planet _Kismet_.

The Crew of the Blue Typhoon kept mercifully quiet about the whole thing.

* * *

_"Can you match the strength of the Gladiators?  
Do you have the fire within you?  
Do you have the courage of a hero?  
Do you have the power in your soul?"_

* * *

**Gladiators? Gods? Random crew from a Starship being _mistaken_ for Gods? Common Sci-fi plot, yeah? It fits. Oh, and ****Kismet, in case anyone doesn't know, is a word meaning "fate". It seemed appropriate enough. **


	6. Thirteen Year Old Self

**These are not songfics. Let me just get that fact out of the way right now. They're short stories **_**inspired**_** by songs. I discovered Scribbler doing something similar with the Kingdom Hearts Videogame series, and decided I'd like to give it a shot. **

**This one is set in the _Sonic X _universe, mid Metarex-Saga and takes place during the episode "_Teasing Time_", which featured the rather infamous appearance of Dark Super Sonic for the first time in animated context. Standard disclaimers apply. Reviews and concrit are both appreciated. Enjoy.**

* * *

_**6. Conversations With My Thirteen Year Old Self, Pink. **_

* * *

Cosmo's hand in his is just like he never imagined it would be (because who could imagine a situation like this?) –cool and silky, like the surface of a new petal. Except for the fact that petals don't sweat with fear, or cling to you for dear life when you brush against them.

She speaks with her eyes as well as her mouth. '_I did. I had to come here, I had to,_' and... Chris

Isn't certain just how true this is. He doesn't pretend to know precisely what's going on inside of Cosmo's head. But then, he never understood what went on in _his_ mind when he was her age, either. No one does.

Children's minds don't work that way. They just try to do what's best for themselves and their friends as best they can. Chris knows that now. He knows who he used to be the way no one else ever can or could. And if he told Cosmo right now that he doesn't understand why she felt she needed to come here, right into Black Narcissus's lair, she'd probably just frown and shake her head and continue trying not to cry. Surely Cosmo must _think _that _no_ _one_ really understands her, least of all a flesh and blood human from another universe.

But Chris kind of feels as if he _does_ understands her, in a way. Whenever Cosmo is around, it's almost like he's looking into a mirror... and okay, so that's a bad analogy, but it's the closest he can get to the truth –Cosmo is everything he used to be as a twelve year old, but with added complications and confusion and the end of everything she'd ever known.

And now he's a shield. Between her and Black Narcissus. The only shield she has. He's the adult this time, who has to stand there and smile and tell her that everything will be alright. He can't let her down. He _won't_ let her down. He has to get both of them home to the Blue Typhoon, so that someone can scold them for their stupidity and for acting like children.

Except that Chris knows he doesn't have that excuse anymore. And Cosmo... well, she'd never excuse herself from anything, anyway.

* * *

"_The pain you feel is real you're not asleep but it's a nightmare  
But you can wake up anytime  
Oh don't lose your passion or the fighter that's inside of you  
You're the girl I used to be  
The pissed off complicated thirteen year old me."_


	7. Sacrifice

**These are not songfics. Let me just get that fact out of the way right now. They're short stories **_**inspired**_** by songs. I discovered Scribbler doing something similar with the Kingdom Hearts Videogame series, and decided I'd like to give it a shot. **

**This one is set in an alternate ending of my Chaos Mythologies fanfiction (you can find it in my account). To all those who are already reading that, rest assured this will **_**not**_** happen in the actual fic, so this isn't a spoiler. Just a "what if?"**

* * *

_**7. Sacrifice, t.A.T.u**_

* * *

'...Here I am.'

He's talking to... Well. To no one, really. There's nobody there. Just silence and endless corridors, thick with Chaos Energy. Where there used to be forestland and depth and life now there is only wreckage and destruction. The Neorex have taken away everything left the planet a torn up shell, and he's not sure exactly how _he's_ still here.

Sonic had had something to do with that, he'd bet. He remembers the feeling of arms around his waist, a smile hiding the fear in familiar green eyes. He knows that Sonic wouldn't let him die. It takes him a moment to work out why.

'I. I know this is what I have to do, but...'

'_But you're scared?' _He feels the voice rather than hears it. It's deep, familiar and tinged with a frown and a smile at the same time.

'Yeah... Pretty much.'

The world begins to collapse around him. Like the entire chaos-ridden forest is made of nothing more than paper, being washed away. But he knows he can still reverse that if he only does this fast enough.

'_We were all afraid in the end.' _

'Yes. But... I'm not Sonic. Or Cosmo. Or Tails... I'm not _you_. I wasn't ever supposed to be a hero.' He lifts his left hand –the one holding the final Chaos Emerald. The only thing that can stop the Neorex and the only thing he'd been able to keep from being destroyed by rising Chaos. One won't be enough, he knows. But coupled with his own life force... his _own_ energy... well... then, maybe...

The voice smiles in the back of his mind, already knowing what he will do. '_And that's precisely why you qualify. Go._'

And he does. With a smile, a raised hand and two singular uttered words that can reverse and undo everything.

Everything except for his own destruction. After all, he chose that himself.

'Chaos Control.'

* * *

_"I will sacrifice  
I will sacrifice  
All I have in life  
To clear my conscience."_


	8. Shallot

**These are not songfics. Let me just get that fact out of the way right now. They're short stories **_**inspired**_** by songs. I discovered Scribbler doing something similar with the Kingdom Hearts Videogame series, and decided I'd like to give it a shot. **

**Standard disclaimers apply. Reviews and concrit are appreciated. **

* * *

_**8. Shallot, Emilie Autumn.**_

* * *

There were days when Maria couldn't stand to look at the earth.

Shadow found this strange. Under normal circumstances, they would spend hours together in the observation room watching the blue and white wisps of the earth far below. Sometimes –rarely– grandpa would join them. Maria would close her eyes, with forehead against the reinforced glass windows, imagining falling like a shooting star, holding her breath and counting the seconds it takes for the sky to change from deep black to planet-blue.

No one could ever survive a fall like that, of course.

Or else she imagined breaking out. Grabbing Shadow's hand, stealing a key card from one of the workmen in the lab and drifting down to earth together in an escape pod. She would never suggest such a thing out loud, of course, but...

But.

The fact of the matter was that some days Maria found that she could stare at the earth for hours, and other days, it hurt far less to look away. To vow she'd never again gaze upon a world she'd never touch. Grandpa's experiments didn't matter, and Maria understood this, perhaps better than anyone else realised. She'd talk with Shadow in whispered conversations, about going to the planet and seeing the world as other humans did, buts still something nagged in the back of her mind, denying her full belief in such a future.

This was why she wasn't angry with the man who killed her. Why she didn't feel any hate or malice as she pulled the lever and ejected Shadow's capsule into the depths of space, watching the freezing process of cryogenics solidifying around his horrified face before he vanished. His terror was all that she regretted. His, and the horror in the face of the man who still holds the smoking gun tightly in both his hands.

He came from earth, didn't he? That mysterious world so far below them. There is something curious about the irony of this in the twelve year old girl's mind. Grandpa was right when he said the world below could kill her.

The world goes cold for her at the same time as it must for Shadow, except that in her case, cryogenics has nothing to do with it. Shadow is not the cure that her grandfather has been looking for. But he is her salvation nonetheless. As is the man with the gun in his hands.

* * *

"_So I'll meet my death  
But with my last breath I'll sing to him I love  
__And he'll see my face in another place,"  
And with that the glass above  
cracked into a million bits  
And she cried out, "So the story fits  
But then I could have guessed it all along  
'Cause now some drama queen is gonna write a song for me_._" _


	9. Comfortably Numb

**These are not songfics. Let me just get that fact out of the way right now. They're short stories _inspired_ by songs. I discovered Scribbler doing something similar with the Kingdom Hearts Videogame series, and decided I'd like to give it a shot. **

**...I am starting to worry about the speed at which I am posting these things. But still, consider this a continuation of the second fic in this collection, "**_**His World (Blue World Prelude)**_**".**

**Standard disclaimers apply. Reviews and concrit are appreciated. **

* * *

_**9. Comfortably Numb, Dar Williams Version. **_

* * *

There are people everywhere. So many of them running in so many directions that he's not sure exactly where the chaos started and where he's supposed to be looking. But he tries to look anyway, every person he shoves to one side seemingly replaced by two more, blocking his path. He figures that if he just heads in the opposite direction to the way that most people are running, he's bound to come across them sooner or la—

Sooner.

'...Sonic?'

He's... in there somewhere. Knuckles can see him through an intermittent gap in the ever growing light and crowds of people. Or at least, whatever's left of him in amongst all of that gold and light. Knuckles isn't sure just where all _that_ started, either, but he knows they should've probably been paying more attention to it. More attention to the way their (his) friend was changing and how they could've done something (anything) to prevent it before things got too bad and the only available option became the most explosive one.

Of course, that's the reason for all the running that's going on, isn't it? Chaos Energy contained in a high enough concentration to emulate a God. All of it wrapped up in a single body. Sonic's body.

'H-hey! Reality to Sonic!' It's a silly thing to yell, really. The words already feel wrong in his mouth: as if they're someone else's words and he's the one who has to speak them. They don't suit him, and Sonic...

Sonic probably knows that.

Chaos, he wonders whether there's anything Sonic _doesn't_ realise, right now.

'Damn it, Sonic you're scaring a lot of people here!'

'_**I know, I know. Totally not my fault**__.' _

Knuckles doesn't hear Sonic reply so much as _feels_ it. The creature on its knees in the middle of the building he recently exploded out of doesn't seem much like Sonic at all, but it certainly sounds like him.

Knuckles takes a deep breath. He is the guardian of the Master Emerald, he tells himself. The last in a long line of echidna's bound to the power of Chaos itself. The guardian of chaos itself does not, under any circumstances, freak out. Not even when those circumstances involve...

'Damn it, Sonic, why didn't you _say anything_ about all this? Why didn't you tell us?'

'_**Wouldn't have made any difference**_,' the voice which Knuckles _hearssensesfeels_ in the back of his mind is accompanied by a shrug, and somehow, he knows that it's the truth. '_**It was meant to happen, I figure. Sorta like destiny**_.'

Knuckles grits his teeth because he knows damn well that he can't argue with that, and no amount of anger will change that fact. 'Since when did you believe in stuff like that?'

He hearssensesfeels a chuckle. '_**I don't know... Since this**_**?**'

Well... Fair enough. Knuckles glimpses from side to side, but the people have almost all disappeared now. A few of them are risking sticking close, dicing with what they probably think is a growing explosion of chaos energy in sentient form in the middle of the city. Except that Knuckles knows it's not an explosion building in the middle of the city right now. It's... something quite different. Something like an ascension.

And what's more, it isn't _fair_.

'Damn it. It didn't _have_ to be this way, Sonic. Destiny...'

'_**Is a fickle pain in the ass, Knux,**_' Sonic finishes his sentence for him. Which is alright, because Knuckles wasn't entirely sure how he was going to end it anyway. '_**This is what it wants. Unless ya **_**want**_** me going all God-like in the middle of town an' blowing up some stuff**_**.**'

'_Stop it_. You're a lot of things but a _God_ sure as Chaos isn't one of them, Sonic.'

Sonic looks at him more seriously than Knuckles has ever seen him look before. His lips move somewhere amidst all the glowing light. Knuckles can't make out what he's saying, but he understands it, anyway. '_**I know that **_**now**_**. That's why I've gotta do this**_.'

He feels the energy building, crackling, like rivulets of non-existent water (doesn't Sonic _hate _water?) across his skin, and he knows there's not much time left.

'_**Hey... I've gotta go. Look after 'em for me, will ya?**__' _

Sonic's right, really. This is what Chaos wants. Though goodness only knows why.

'...Sure.'

* * *

"_There is no pain you were receding  
A distant ship floats on the horizon  
You're only coming through in waves  
Your lips move but I can't hear watcha saying..."_

* * *


	10. Spirit Never Dies

**These are not songfics. Let me just get that fact out of the way right now. They're short stories **_**inspired**_** by songs. I discovered Scribbler doing something similar with the Kingdom Hearts Videogame series, and decided I'd like to give it a shot. **

**The last few reviews made me realise something: I kill Sonic **_**far**_** too much. Poor guy XD **

**Standard disclaimers apply. Reviews and concrit are both appreciated. **

* * *

_**10. Spirit Never Dies, Masterplan.**_

* * *

Nine year old Knuckles the Echidna is going to be a Guardian.

He's not entirely sure what that means, exactly, but he knows it's the explanation for the dreams he sometimes has about dark green places and burning forests. He knows that it's the reason that the spirits left him alone here, and why they don't take care of him anymore. He's old enough to look after himself now.

Knuckles isn't certain how he feels about the Master Emerald. It's pretty. And it's powerful. Sonic said once that it's was "pretty powerful" but Sonic's jokes are bad. Anyway, Sonic's not a guardian. Knuckles is. Knuckles knows he'll grow to understand the Master Emerald better than anyone. He reads all of the scrolls that the spirits left him, even the ones without pictures, and he never _ever_ leaves the Emerald on its own, because that would be breaking the rules.

Some days Knuckles kind of _wants_ to break the rules. Sonic can be such a pain sometimes, always running about all over the place and trying to make Knuckles go with him. except that Knuckles _can't_ do that, and Sonic doesn't _get it_. It's kind of lonely sometimes, but that's okay because he's not really alone. Not really.

'_**There are no limits**_,' it says to him one night when there are no stars overhead to distract him and it knows how bored he is. The Emerald doesn't speak often, but he's always excited when it does.

'Limits?' Knuckles sits up, gazing into the green surface of the emerald besides him. 'My limits?'

'_**Yes, Knuckles. Your limits. They don't exist, if you don't wish them to**__.' _

Knuckles shuffles under the starless sky. He knows he might be dreaming this, but with the Master Emerald, that never really matter. It hasn't been a happy day. Sonic was running everywhere making a mess again. 'That's what the spirits used ta' say. I don't get what it means.'

'_**You will eventually. No person truly understands their destiny at first**_**.**'

'I do so understand,' Knuckles argues, and knows it's not silly at all to argue with a rock, no matter _what_ that stupid Sonic says. 'I'm gonna be a Guardian.'

'_**Not going to be. Are. A guardian. You must remember**_.'

'Remember? Remember what?'

'_**That the servers are the seven Chaos. Our hearts intensify their power. The task of the controller is to unify the Chaos**_.'

Knuckles doesn't understand. 'That doesn't make any sense.'

'_**It will.**_'

'When?'

'_**When you are ready to accept your destiny as Guardian. That will happen soon, Knuckles**__.'_

It feels a little strange, hearing this. Knuckles has never thought about it quite like that before. But hadn't the spirits always told him that he was to be a Guardian? He'd never questioned it, and he read the scrolls because he wanted to...

He's never questioned being a Guardian_._ But if he had, would they have made him do it anyway? 'Can't I be other stuff too; I mean... there are lots of things kids my age like to do.'

'_**Guardians are not like other children.**__'_

'Why's it me?'

'_**You were raised for this. You were born to become a Guardian**_,' the Master Emerald says. Knuckles wonders whether it might not know anything else to say.

Knuckles turns over, gazing firmly at the glowing green surface of the Master Emerald with a new sense of confusion. 'Then there are limits, aren't there? _You're_ a limit.'

'..._**Yes**_.' It says, simply. It says nothing else for the rest of the night.

The next time Sonic asks Knuckles to chase him, Knuckles almost agrees.

The Master Emerald rarely speaks to him again for many years. When it finally does, Knuckles is sixteen years old, the world is crumbling around him, and Sonic is about to die.

That all changes when Knuckles remembers what the Emerald taught him. When he repeats the words it spoke to him, and finally understands them. He understands why he's a guardian. Because the controller serves to unify the Chaos. That's his job. That is what the Master Emerald wants from him. That is why he was taken away from those who cared for him and raised him and left alone on Angel Island.

And he decides that maybe it's not so bad being a Guardian, limits and all. Lonely, sometimes, yes. But not _bad_. Not so long as he believes, in his heart, in what he is doing.

* * *

"_So never give up - never give in  
Won't stop believing 'cause I'm gonna win  
Sing with your soul - soon you'll be old  
Fight the demons inside you  
There is no limit to what can be done  
Climb every mountain with power so strong  
Dusty roads on the way - leaving the past behind you_."


	11. In Control

**These are not songfics. Let me just get that fact out of the way right now. They're short stories **_**inspired**_** by songs. I discovered Scribbler doing something similar with the Kingdom Hearts Videogame series, and decided I'd like to give it a shot. **

**Standard disclaimers apply. Reviews and concrit are both appreciated. **

* * *

_**10. In Control, Nemesea.**_

* * *

It's dark here. Dark and cold and _freaky_, but he's been in freakier places before, so that doesn't bother him so much. It's the voices which are really getting to him. Or rather, the Voice, because only one of them is really important. The rest are just the background echoes of a thousand trapped spirits, locked within the thousand fake Chaos Emeralds that someone has created.

The loudest voice has no emerald. It exists only within himself.

'**So here we are, hedgehog. I knew you wouldn't just give up. Congratulations**.'

Sonic doesn't answer. He's not that sure what he's being congratulated for but...

...He knows that he's done something bad. His _other_ has done something bad. Just like it almost did last time, back in the Metarex ship.

'**So you remember me...**' It says.

'No.' He lies. And it knows that he is lying, because it knows everything that he knows.

And why is it so damn _cold_ here?

'**Untrue. You know I'm here, you know who I am**.'

'Who, me?' Sonic tries not to shudder. He contemplates running, but how do you run fast enough to get away from what's inside yourself? Through the endless blackness, speckled with the negative ugly lights of a thousand fake emeralds, he thinks he can smell something burning. 'Nah... c-can't say I do. I know what you want me to think, but you _can't_ be me.'

'**Can't I?**' It sounds just like Shadow sounds when he's amused, but... uglier. Colder (and Sonic never thought he'd ever say something like that).

It's only when he tries to talk again that he realises how much _colder_ his environment has become in the last few minutes. He's shaking without meaning to. There's nothing he can do about it, just as there's nothing he can do about the darkness all around him. 'What... what've you done...?'

'**Done?**' Now it's voice sounds just the way that Sonic knows his own voice does, whenever Tails has caught him doing something he shouldn't.

'T...to Chris. And Tails and Amy. What've you _done_ to them?'

'**Why are you upset? You **_**wanted**_** him to stay, didn't you? You wouldn't admit it to yourself, but you did. And I knew that. So I made it so that he would stay forever. I fixed things, just like I tried to last time, before that ridiculous human and his robotic contraptions interrupted us. You were happy that I helped you, then. Why not now?**'

'C-cause this isn't right, that's why.' Sonic mutters.

'**How rich. Perhaps if I'd been allowed to help sooner... We could've **_**saved**_** her, you know. **_**I**_** could've kept her alive, brought her back as more than merely that pathetic seed.**'

Sonic winces. Okay, that one hurts. 'C-Cosmo...'

'**What about her?'**

'She... she wouldn't have w-wanted your help. She would've sooner died.'

'**Well she certainly accomplished **_**that**_**, didn't she?**' The voice sounds amused again. '**Good for her. But no more. No one else you love will ever have to die, Sonic the Hedgehog. Not Chris. Not Tails. Not Amy Rose. Not Cream. Not Knuckles. Not even that infernal Shadow, though he had quite the life expectancy anyway, didn't he? Their spirits are scattered amongst the negative emeralds, and I will keep them here with you forever. You can exist together in this world that you and I have created together in your heart**. **Consider it a "thank you"**,' it said, proudly. '**For allowing me to exist within your mind and body all this time**.'

_Inside of his_... Sonic clutches his chest on total impulse. This place can't be anything to do with him. It can't be. It was created by the Nega-Emeralds, wasn't it? By the artificial energy that this Other Self of his gives out...

'S-send me back. Let me go back to my world.'

'**No, I don't think so. You can leave that world to me now, Sonic. You've done more than enough for them and now it's my turn**.'

'N-no.'

'**You know it's true. I am here now. I always have been, and I always will be. I've come back to you. Is that such a bad thing?**'

_Bad bad bad bad bad_. That word is pounding in his head now, over and over. This is wrong. All wrong, just like it was _last_ time. The first time he had felt the anger of artificial emeralds, poisoned by the Metarex. 'W-where are my friends?'

'**Oh, they're around. Somewhere. I brought them here along with you, Sonic. I'm sure you can find them on your own eventually. Meantime, we should get to know each other. I'm just another facet of you, after all, aren't I? You may call me Dark Sonic.**'

'I'm not c-calling you anything! And I won't let you hurt my friends!' Sonic snaps. And then he starts to do the only thing he really knows how to do in a situation like this. He starts to run through the speckled black-and-lightness all around him. Ignore the cold. Ignore the burning ice of the Emeralds every time he gets too close. Ignore the taunting in his ears. Just run, and run, and hope.

'_**Hurt**_** them?**' The presence sounds genuinely confused. '**You wanted them here with you, didn't you? What does their pain matter, provided you can keep your promise?**'

Sonic doesn't know what promise it's talking about. He ignores the sight of his own reflection, shining in the surface of the ugly world all around him. The darkness of the quills and the deep blackness of his eyes. He runs, faster and faster.

_Not me. _He tells it one last time.

Dark smiles: a tickling sensation in the back of Sonic's brain.

'**Running. Just like always, Sonic the hedgehog. But I am the one thing which you cannot run fast enough to get away from. You know this**.'

Yeah, Sonic thinks. He knows. But he also knows that the other aren't gone. That the Other Him won't touch them. That he won't let that happen to them.

'**So what are you going to do, Sonic? Are you going to try and fight me**?'

Be damned if he isn't going to try. 'Hell, yes.'

* * *

"_So, here you are, wide awake,  
You won't give up fighting.  
Still, you can pray, on your knees.  
I am here._

_Can you hear me?  
You've lost and I control you.  
You won't escape, all your nightmares will break free,  
'Cause you are afraid of me."_

* * *


	12. Across the Sky

**These are not songfics. Let me just get that fact out of the way right now. They're short stories inspired by songs. I discovered Scribbler doing something similar with the Kingdom Hearts Videogame series, and decided I'd like to give it a shot. **

**Interestingly, someone else has done a fic featuring this song, also. I suggest you guys go check out Ayries Kukku's "Ever Near The End", also Sonic fanfiction. It's newly posted and a good read.**

**Standard disclaimers apply. Reviews and concrit are both appreciated.**

* * *

_**12. Emilie Autumn, Across the Sky.**_

* * *

She is the Bride of Chaos.

There would be no escaping from this fact, even if she had wanted to. She had been chosen long ago, by the Chao and by Chaos himself. It is she who chooses to give her own spirit in order to quell his anger during her people's attack on the temple. It is she who spends thousands of years alongside him, in peace, but also loneliness. It is she who created the chant which had bound the guardians ever since.

_The Seven Chaos Emeralds are the servers. Our hearts intensify their power. The controller severs to unify the chaos._

Once, the controller was her.

Tikal has always known that love is a strange thing: stranger than any other emotion possessed by any species, and infinitely more complicated. She had continued to love her father even after he attacked the temple and destroyed their people. She continued to care for the Chao even when they fought and quarrelled. A tiny glimmer of herself is present in every individual who has ever touched a Chaos Emerald –however good or cruel they might be. She understands the Master Emerald in a way no creature, living or dead, has ever understood it before. This f all knowingness is something that Chaos offered, and she knows he gave her this gift out of love for her.

So she knows, when the centuries have rolled by and single hedgehog and the last remaining echidna are all that stands in the way of Chaos' rage and the destruction of two worlds, that it will ultimately be her who quells the creature's spirit by sacrificing herself to him, all over again. Because she is the only one who can.

His anger, however, has given her one thing: that is, a chance to see the world again. To touch the earth with Solid form. To hold another's hand in hers, to feel the breeze against her face and the gentle flutter of Chao wings against her skin.

But she has made her decision and she is bound to it for eternity. Bound to the love of Chaos.

Tikal stopped desiring freedom and life again long ago.

* * *

_"Should we hear the silence  
Should we hear the noise  
I don't need this blind acceptance  
I have made my choice  
Light lives in the darkness  
Beauty lives in pain  
In destruction we may lose ourselves  
But still I will remain."_

* * *


	13. Ameno

**These are not songfics. Let me just get that fact out of the way right now. They're short stories **_**inspired**_** by songs. I discovered Scribbler doing something similar with the Kingdom Hearts Videogame series, and decided I'd like to give it a shot. **

**NB: This is a really, really **_**weird**_** song to write for. But fun. There's no real translation for the lyrics (though Ameno is apparently a commune in the province of Novara, Italy), so I ended ****had this idea of Chaos being unleashed in the oceans of the world and ensuring things are reshaped the way it wants them to be. Like a God. **

**Standard disclaimers apply. Reviews and concrit are both appreciated. **

* * *

_**13. Era, Ameno. **_

* * *

There was a saying on Earth that disaster came in sets of three. Not at the same time, but at intervals, spread out like shooting stars before they collided with the world and sent everything tumbling into Chaos.

Pun intended.

The world rebuilt itself quite slowly after the creature subsided for the third and final time. Chaos rose from every ocean, faster and in larger quantities than even Sonic and Shadow had time to prevent, and the people of earth soon realised, with an abject degree of horror, precisely why their planet consisted of so much water in the first place. Thousands drowned. Maybe tens of thousands. Cities sank and disappeared from the globe. Sonic and the others learned quite quickly that only the richest of earth's countries had mechanical tools suited for the task of rebuilding, and...

Well. They'd never had to rebuild everything after the end of the world before.

And then, just when it was thought that things could not possibly become any worse, Sonic's world fell into the Earth.

They called it "Mobius" these days. Sonic wasn't sure why. Something to do with the way the seas had risen in a certain, twisting pattern to announce the other world's arrival in (or should that be, it's return to?) earth's space-time. According to Chris, anyway. The "walls" between the worlds collapsing and sinking into the seas, no longer able to hold the two worlds apart now that the Master Emerald had crumbled and Chaos had been set permanently loose, to rage amongst the coastlines and rivers, was quite a sight to behold. As was the sight of one of the remaining earth ships, drifting as close to the edge of the new world as it could, and its crew members, able to reach overboard and touch the outstretched hands of Mobians through the steadily disintegrating barrier.

Sonic had been on that ship, against all odds (he been going through a phase of hating water more than ever at the time). No one had known whether to laugh or cry. For the first time, Sonic had found himself clinging just as tightly to Amy as she did to him as they "watched" the two worlds merge and rise and fall, like two incompatible liquids being forced e together. They settled, eventually, into distinct continents and realities. Two worlds as one once again.

* * *

The human world rebuilds itself differently to its original version. It seems to want to take the Mobians into account. To set up trade, and economy and scientific expeditions across the borders. It's strange to think that they no longer need a portal to go home and back.

For a while, at least, there shall be peace. For them, anyway. Sonic wonders whether there will ever be any true peace for Chaos, though, now winding and churning endlessly in the depths of every sea. He wonders if there'll be peace for Tikal's spirit: what happened to her after the barriers broke down. He wonders whether Knuckles had known this would eventually happen, and that one day, his task as Guardian would be over.

That's what Sonic thinks about, during the rare occasions when he gives it any thought at all. Normally he's too busy for anything like that. Running used to be a lot more fun before he started acting as a courier for every freaking species on the planet(s), but he can still run, at least.

Weeks pass, and the weeks fade into years. Chaos Controls the supply of water now, to every corner of the globe. It gives willingly to anyone who needs it, and throws anger at those who disrespect it in the form of waves and storms. But it is no longer his enemy. Not really. So Sonic feels quite calm and still on the day approximately five years after the First Submersion, when the oceans rise once more to reshape what the humans are trying to rebuild, quite carefully ensuring that things are rebuilt the way Chaos wants them. It submerges military bases and weapons cruisers and neutralises any attempts at attack. It picks drowning children out of its body and apologises for those who died five years ago by forming graves for them in the sand of the new coastlines. There are many of these beaches around the world. To some people they have become shrines. A place to come and pray for lives gone past.

Sonic doesn't pretend to understand.

It talks to him, sometimes. Chaos, that is. Whispering about strange things and distant truths which haven't yet been revealed. '_Wait_,' the oceans tell him whenever he enquired further, and Sonic finds that he isn't afraid of water anymore. Not after hearing that voice in his ears and mind. The world didn't fall apart (not permanently anyway) when the Master Emerald did, the way some (hello, Knuckles) had expected, and he can deal with the fact that he now has all seven Chaos Emeralds contained within him. The fact that sometimes, the ocean and rivers and streams like to sneak up on him unexpectedly and play with him. On a good day.

Sometimes he'll sit with Knuckles in the place which used to be Central Station square and is now a gargantuan river and they'll listen to the voices together, reflecting on older times and worlds, and wondering about what the words Chaos speaks to them mean. Sonic knows he talks a lot more these days than he used to. It feels as if there's something worth talking about. Chaos is a part of them, after all. It's part of everyone these days.

Amy joins them sometimes, as does Tails, and Cream, and Chris (when he's not glued to that computer in the laboratory). Sonic thinks he's even seen Shadow a few times, dwelling in the darkest corners of the cliffs. Sonic and his friends talk together, with their feet touching the waves, and remember what the world used to be. None of them really have any answers about what happened, but that's alright. All that matters these days is that he and Chris had been right, Sonic realises. The two worlds _had_ been meant to come together after all. If not entirely in the way they had expected.

And this is how things are meant to be. The new Era has begun. All is as Chaos wishes it to be.

* * *

"_Ameno  
Omenare imperavi ameno_

_Dimere dimere matiro  
Matiremo  
Ameno."_

**

* * *

**

In case you're curious, a "Mobius Strip", I have discovered, is in fact, "**a continuous closed surface with only one side; formed from a rectangular strip by rotating one end 180 degrees and joining it with the other end". It looks kind of like an eternity symbol. I'm not sure whether the writers of Sonic the hedgehog knew this at the time, but it's interesting nonetheless. Kind of like an eternity symbol. **


	14. Let the Flames Begin

**These are not songfics. Let me just get that fact out of the way right now. They're short stories **_**inspired**_** by songs. I discovered Scribbler doing something similar with the Kingdom Hearts Videogame series, and decided I'd like to give it a shot. This one is set early into the Metarex Saga. Like say, before the episode "Desperately Seeking Sonic"/"Young Girls Jungle Trap". **

**Standard disclaimers apply. Reviews and concrit are both appreciated. **

* * *

_**14. Let the Flames Begin, Paramore.**_

* * *

'So have we tried shooting Sonic at them yet?'

It's bizarre really, but the suggestion Amy just made isn't really as ridiculous as it sounds. Actually, that's probably the only option left which could possibly have any effect. Except that...

'We _would_, Amy, but I'm not sure it'll work. We still haven't gotten it back online after the _last_ time, and to fire Sonic into an enemy attack of even half this intensity... I dunno if it's a good idea to put so much pressure on it. Besides he's just one hedgehog, we can only shoot him _once_ and there's about... I don't even wanna _think_ how many Metarex out there.'

'So you're saying that it's impossible to fire the Sonic Driver right now?'

Tails shakes his head. His two tails are flicking back and forth behind him in a way that Cream recognizes as anxious. 'Not impossible... just inadvisable.'

'Great,' Amy sighed. 'Just great. So we're stuck, then.'

Cream shuffles, holding Cheese tightly, but doesn't say anything. There's nothing that she _can_ say, really. And nothing she can do. (She _did_ promise mother that she wouldn't touch any buttons).

'Yeah... in the middle of a Metarex colony roughly fifty thousand strong,' Chris bites down on his bottom lip, his fingers flying across his monitor control boards so quickly that Cream can hardly _see_ them. It's quite peculiar to see. 'Give or take a ship or two. Plus our lasers have already been rendered useless by the last two attacks, we can't get the bay door open to get the pilot ships out, and—'

'_Thank you_, Chris, I think we get the idea.' Amy mutters.

'Sorry. Just trying to be realistic.'

'Oh who needs realism? We're Team Sonic!' Amy snaps, rising in her seat, hammer outstretched in one hand even though there's nothing for her to throw it at in here, and it wouldn't do much good out there.

'Amy?' Cosmo is gazing at Amy with a look of confusion mingled with the terror in her eyes. Nobody can blame her, Cream supposes. She's seen the Metarex in action. She's seen the damage that one ship alone can cause. She probably knows exactly what the odds of their getting out of this alive are, and they aren't very good.

But then again, their adventure is just starting right? No way are they going to let it end so quickly. 'You heard me, Cosmo. Don't you worry about a thing it's all gonna be just fine.'

'But I...' Cosmo's mouth hangs open in her disbelieving anxiety. Cream wants to tell her just what Amy just did, but she can't quite think how to put it. Amy always said things so much better than she does... 'There's so many of them... I've never seen so many.'

'All the more for us to knock down, then,' Amy says, confidently. 'Soon as we can work out _how_ to, anyway.'

'I'm working on that,' Chris says, his fingers shifting at Sonic speed across the keys of his control panel again. 'Just give me a minute to run something up, okay?

'We might not _have_ a minute,' Tails says. 'It's obvious that they're waiting for us to make the first move, but I don't reckon they're going to be that patient for long... Cosmo?' he looks at her for confirmation and Cosmo nearly flinches at the sudden attention.

'It... wouldn't be like the Metarex to show restraint,' she says, softly. 'I'm actually surprised they haven't started attacking us already. They must believe... that they have us totally overpowered and there's nothing we can do to stop them.' The tone of her voice suggests that she believes that too. Cream feels the knotty sensation in her stomach growing thick and cold.

'Don't worry, Cosmo. A minute's all the time we need, you'll see.' Sonic says certainly.

'Getting a message from Knuckles, guys,' Chris says, quickly, turning round to face Tails. 'he thinks we can use the Master Emerald to channel enough power to the Sonic driver to prevent internal combustion, _and_ create a refraction effect that'll increase the proximity of Sonic's blast to... um...' he pauses, noticing the blank looks on the faces of everyone except Tails. 'I mean... he can use the emerald so that we hit more bad guys in one go. Like _half_ of them in one go. That's provided we fire within twenty-five-point-eight-five-two seconds.'

'Give or take a second or two?' Cream asks, hopefully.

'N-o, _exactly_ twenty-five-point-eight-five-two,' Chris adds. 'There's no room for any leeway here. If we let it build up any longer the whole engine room could collapse from the pressure, let it build up any less and Sonic won't have the momentum to hit as many targets in one go as we need to.'

'Oh.' Tails looks a little uneasy. 'Okay... I can pilot or I can fire, guys, I can't do both. Not to _those_ exact specifications, anyway.'

'We've never... done anything like this before, have we?' Cosmo asks uneasily. 'That's a very small number.'

'Well,' Chris leans back in his chair, gazing strangely calmly through the front viewer at the Metarex ships beyond; dozens upon dozens of them, hanging like locusts in the blackness of space. Cream shivers. '...I've seen smaller.'

Cream isn't certain if he's telling the truth or not, but something about his expression bids her to believe him. 'You think you can do it?' she asks, uncertainly, even though she already _knows_ what Chris's answer will be.

Chris turns round and looks at Tails. 'I can give it a try. _We_ can give it a try. I'll need someone to control a countdown.'

'I can do that!' Cream pipes up. She's good at counting. She can get all the way up to a thousand-_thousand_, when she's feeling really patient, and she's sure mother won't mind her touching the buttons just this once, right?

Cosmo doesn't look so sure. 'But Chris, if we fail, then...'

'We _won't_ fail,' Amy says, looking at Chris with a smile on her face far too large for someone about to face down fifty thousand-or-something Metarex in one go. 'We can't. Team Sonic, right Amy? When have we ever failed?'

'How about never?' Chris says, sounding more confident than before. 'We can do it, I'm sure we can.'

'Guys, I like the way ya think,' Sonic grins. 'I like it _very_ much. So. _Now_ can we kick ass?'

Everyone is looking at Tails now, Amy in impatience, Cosmo in blind hope, Sonic in expectation, Chris in interest and Cream in total, utter belief. Cheese squeaks excitedly on her lap, and Tails' uneasy expression gradually changes into a smile.

'Sure, Sonic,' he says, drawing a control panel closer and activating a signal of some kind which makes the lights all around them turn red and flicker in strange patterns, accompanied by loud noises that would probably be scary if Cream wasn't so sure that Tails knows exactly what he's doing. '_Now_ we can kick ass. Channelling all power away from the shields and unimportant areas into the Master Emerald Chamber and beginning loading sequence. Sonic you know what to do, right?'

'Do I ever! Come on, already! Let's show those Metarex what happens when you underestimate the Crew of the Blue Typhoon.' Sonic grins and everyone smiles at his retreating outline believingly. Including Cosmo.

Cream starts counting down from ten.

And (she knows it's bad language, but) they really _do _Kick Metarex Ass.

* * *

"_No matter how long  
I believe that there's hope  
Buried beneath it all and  
Hiding beneath it all, and  
Growing beneath it all, and..._

_This is how we'll dance when,  
When they try to take us down  
This is how we'll sing it.  
This is how we'll stand when  
When they burn our houses down.  
This is what will be.  
Oh, glory."_

* * *


	15. Orchard of Mines

**These are not songfics. Let me just get that fact out of the way right now. They're short stories **_**inspired**_** by songs. I discovered Scribbler doing something similar with the Kingdom Hearts Videogame series, and decided I'd like to give it a shot. **

**This takes place after the episode "The Cosmo Conspiracy" (during which it was discovered that Cosmo was being used as an unwitting spy for the Metarex), but before the episode "Angel of Mischief" (when the crew arrive at Galactic coordinates 0, 0, 0 for the final showdown). I'm imagining there was a slight time lag between those two episodes. **

**Standard disclaimers apply. Reviews and concrit are both appreciated. **

* * *

_**15. Orchard of Mines, Globus. **_

* * *

It's difficult to have bad _days_ in the depths of space.

Actually, it's difficult to have a good _or_ bad _anything_ relating to exact time zones out here. They're more like bad _phases_, and they always seem to affect most of the crew at the same time. It's understandable, really because they're... basically stuck out here together, with the weight of the universe quite literally bearing down upon them. Cream spends an unusual amount of time talking in a series of clicks and whines (it's probably Chao-speak or something), Knuckles never leaves the Engine Room (_don't talk to him, really not a good idea to talk to him right now_), talking to Amy about _anything_ becomes comparable to walking through a minefield and Sonic...

Sonic never _stops_.

Chris has lost track of exactly how long it's been since they left Sonic's world in the Blue Typhoon, and he has no idea how long it's been since the last time he saw Earth. Long enough that thinking of Helen's smile and Danny's laugh and Francis hitting him with a cushion makes his chest ache, just the way it did when he used the Master Emerald's power to come here.

He figures it's his penalty, or something: the price he pays for messing with powers far beyond his understanding, along with the fact that he looks like a twelve-year-old again and that people are always forgetting that he's not the way he was then anymore.

It seems like everyone is aware of how everyone else is feeling. They all know what they're stuck in the middle of. And knowing now that even the person who has been the bane of their lives for so long is being controlled by the Metarex throws a whole new layer of anxiety into the situation. All of a sudden, Eggman and his robots don't seem quite so dangerous anymore.

It's Cosmo who worries him the most. She spends a lot of time in her room, with her eyes closed and her hands over her ears. Almost every minute that Tails isn't on the bridge or working on the Typhoon's engines or doing any of the other half a million things he has to do, he's in there with her. Chris walks past the closed door sometimes and hears him to her talking –his voice low, constant and reassuring. The same way he sometimes talks to his machinery.

Cosmo never says anything. Or at least, Chris has never _heard_ her. She's playing it safe –closing her eyes and ears to anything which might turn out to be important. Making sure that nothing she learns could be used against them again. She'll probably try to stay that way until they get wherever it is they're going.

It's difficult to think that the Metarex have been watching them all this time. Learning _everything_ that they learned. Seeing everything they saw. More difficult still, though, to see _her_ dealing with that fact. It's like back when he was twelve, watching Sonic disappearing from his world forever. Like the fear in his mother's eyes when she heard about his grandma's heart attack. He can't do anything about it, no matter how much he might want to. All he can do is watch.

So he doesn't quite know what to do when a red alert starts flashing just as he's passing Cosmo's room. Tails running out of the room, not letting go of Cosmo's hand until the last second, leaving her clinging to the doorframe and watching him leave.

Tails pauses for just long enough to turn back and look at Chris meaningfully through eyes that know way too much for the eight year old he supposedly is, and Chris stops trying to follow Tails up to the control room to find out what the heck is happening _this_ time. He knows what Tails wants him to do.

_Stay with her, stay with Cosmo. _

'Uh...' It's the only thing he can think of. Chris glimpses at Cosmo uncertainly, still clinging to the doorframe like a lifeline, eyes watching the place where Tails had disappeared. Chris has never seen an expression like that before. Not in real life; heck, not even in his mother's best performances.

Cosmo turns to look up at him very slowly, and Chris realises that he hasn't spoken to her at all since they learned about her eyes and ears. The red lights continue to flicker all around them and Cosmo turns around abruptly, running back into her room.

Chris hesitates for a couple of seconds before following her in. The lights are still flickering red and the sirens are still loud in his ears. Whatever the problem is, Tails the others can deal with it.

Cosmo's secret has exploded out of a moment just like this. First the dull silence of the Typhoon's artificial "night", still and peaceful –no warnings, no earthquakes, no sign that anything was about to go wrong. The same red light had blurred the sight of anyone running through the Typhoons corridors. Chris wasn't exactly awake for a lot of the time, but he knows from what the others told him, how things had turned out.

The noise of the klaxons fades behind the closed door, but he can still hear it – muffled and distant. Whatever he emergency is, it's not in this wing of the ship, or else the lights would've been red and flashing in here, too. '...Hi.'

He sits down next to her and she looks at him with the smallest of smiles. He's seen that look before –back on Black Narcissus's base, when there was glass all around them and the blood refused to stop. It's not a real smile: it's something she's doing specifically to reassure him.

Cosmo's like that. 'Hi...'

'There's something going on out there, isn't there?' Chris looks up at the ceiling. 'Probably nothing much, right?'

'Red klaxon alerts don't tend to mean nothing,' Cosmo murmurs.

'Well... no, I guess they don't. But still. That doesn't mean it's not okay for us to go upstairs, if you want to.' Cosmo shakes her head rapidly. 'Well... you can stay back, then. Keep your eyes closed. We want you up there with us, Cosmo.' _And we don't give a damn in heck what the Metarex see_. 'It's been kind of... uncomfortable, not having you there with us.' _We miss you. We want you back. You're still you, this hasn't changed anything. _

'I'm sorry; I don't mean to cause trouble.'

'No, it's not like that at all! It's...' damn it. He never was any good at stuff like this. 'I mean, you're not causing trouble, we just miss you, that's all. It's not fair that you should have to stay down here all the time.'

'Maybe it's not fair, but it's certainly the safest option, Chris,' Cosmo says, calmly and without regret. 'Still... it's very quiet in my mind today and I'd like to keep it that way. Thank you, though. I know you're all still my friends. I won't lose you just by staying down here where I can't see you. '

She's so much like his old self sometimes that it's frankly scary. 'Quiet?'

'Yes. There aren't any voices in my head today. The Metarex talk sometimes, but today they're silent,' Cosmo answers, quietly. And Chris tries not to let this thought disturb him.

'Oh. But that's...'

Cosmo smiles vaguely, as if she understands exactly what he's finding it so damn tricky to say. '...I think I'll stay here. Thank you.' Cosmo pulls her sheet up close to her face, peering anxiously at the door. Chris waits for her head to vanish underneath her sheets, but it never quite does.

Her eyes aren't her own anymore. Tails was right about her heart, but that doesn't change what she sees and hears and who else sees and hears _through_ her. That doesn't change the voices that she's hearing in her head.

Was Dark Oak watching when Black Narcissus slashed open the seals on Chris's space suit and cut into him? Did he see Cosmo preparing their party, decorating the walls and tables and laughing over slices of cake? Did he see Tails smiling and taking Cosmo's hands? Or Shadow drawing back a fist ready to smash it into her? Did it amuse him, to see her so afraid?

Chris sighs, decides he doesn't care, and pulls Cosmo under his arm. Cosmo squeezes her eyes closed a little tighter and folds into him silently. Neither of them say a word until long after the Klaxons are silent again.

* * *

_"Don't taint this ground with the color of the past  
Are the sounds in bloom with you?  
Cause you feel like an orchard of mines  
Just take one step at a time_

_And you seem to break like time  
So fragile on the inside, you climb these grapevines  
Would you look now unto the pit of me on the ground  
And you wander through these to climb these grapevines..."_


	16. The Call

**These are not songfics. Let me just get that fact out of the way right now. They're short stories **_**inspired**_** by songs. I discovered Scribbler doing something similar with the Kingdom Hearts Videogame series, and decided I'd like to give it a shot. **

**Standard disclaimers apply. Reviews and concrit are both appreciated. **

* * *

_**16. The Call, Regina Spektor.**_

* * *

He can hear them calling.

Just quietly, at first. A tickle somewhere in the back of his mind so far away that he figures he's imagining it. Or hallucinating. It would be kind of natural for him to start doing that right now, he figures.

And at first, it doesn't make much difference. Because it's only background noise, fizzing away inside of him. Noting worth listening to. Nothing that can change the fact that he's screwed up. He's screwed up so damn _bad_... he wasn't fast enough.

He's not used to feelings like this. He doens't _like_ feelings like this. He's never lost this way before. He's Sonic the Freaking hedgehog. The word failure isn't in his dictionary.

Clearly, he and Metal Sonic aren't reading the same book. Or maybe the problem is that they're reading _exactly_ the same book, right down to the bare bones. Metal knows everything. Metal sees everything, Metal can predict what Sonic is going to do before he even thinks of it himself, because the only thing faster than Sonic the Hedgehog is the programming inside of a computer and...

And people are gonna die.

He screwed up and people are going to die.

Or not. Because the background noise if getting louder. It's not just a faint tickle anymore. It's growing stronger and stronger and brighter inside of him and...

_"Sonic... Sonic... Sonic... Sonic..."_

His name.

They're calling his name. _His_ name. Not Metal Sonic's name, not _really_. He can hear them so clearly, even though they're so far away and he's way out here in the middle of the desert. He...

...He can hear _Tails_ in there, chuckling as he speaks, Cream and Cheese in a unison voice, so loud he can't tell which of them is which, Chris in a mixed up kind of tone that Sonic can't work out as being twelve years old or eighteen or maybe older, Cosmo –_god I'm sorry, Cosmo, I _tried_, you know I did_– speaking quieter than all the living voices, but with no less belief and resilience, Knuckles who sounds like he wants to bite his head off as well as cheer him on, and Shadow... who is calling him faker, but what the hell, it's enough. There's Amy's voice in there too, and she's laughing loudly at the thought that anyone could ever defeat him.

All of them and more besides. He's not sure how many people there are speaking inside of his head right now, exactly; he's not sure how they can still _do _it. He's remembering things. Things he hadn't realised he still had inside of him. '_Better hurry,_' the memories are telling him. '_You can still catch Metal up. You can still end this. You're fast enough. You're strong enough..._

'_We believe in you_.'

The one thing of his which Metal Sonic _doesn't_ have. The one thing that he could _never_ possess.

'_Get with it, Sonic_,' he tells himself, suddenly grinning. '_This is long distance Team Sonic motivation that you're getting here. And they've totally got you on reverse call charge!'_

Sonic runs. He ignores any thoughts of pain or defeat, and he runs.

* * *

"_It started out as a feeling  
Which then grew into a hope  
Which then turned into a quiet thought  
Which then turned into a quiet word_

_And then that word grew louder and louder  
Until it was a battle cry  
I'll come back  
When you call me  
No need to say goodbye."_


	17. Nobody's Hero

**These are not songfics. Let me just get that fact out of the way right now. They are ****short stories **_**inspired**_** by songs. I discovered Scribbler doing something similar with the Kingdom Hearts Videogame series, and decided I'd like to give it a shot. **

**Standard disclaimers apply. Reviews and concrit are both appreciated. **

* * *

_**16. Nobody's Hero, Bon Jovi.**_

* * *

It's easy to forget sometimes that he's as mortal as the rest of them.

Especially easy after seeing Sonic go head-to-head with Metarex and Sentient Planets. After seeing Tails reprogram the NASA supercomputer with nothing but a hairclip and an IQ on 192. After seeing what happens when Amy's fury gives way to pro-action and witnessing even Cream giving as good as she gets in the field of attack.

And he's just a human. A smart human, sure, but that's about as far as it goes.

It was probably a very effective Doomsday device before it got out of his control (as so many of the Doctor's really successful contraptions seem to do)and started sucking people into its illusions left right and centre. Exposing them to all their worst nightmares at once. He imagines Sonic trapped in a world without speed and Cream stuck in pure darkness for what must feel like eternity. Tails, unable to keep up with his own mind: Cosmo's death over and over and over. The machine feeds on their anger and terror and grows and grows with every bad thought it absorbs, threatening to crush Station square beneath it. He's the only one who can see that happening because he's right in the middle of it.

It's funny really, but that's something he's always known: All of their individual fears are his own fears, too. He fears that one day, Sonic won't be fast enough. That Tails won't be smart enough. That Cream won't quite be brave enough. Knuckles won't be strong enough. That Amy will let anger get the better of her one time too many.

Most of all, he fears letting them down. That's what's being used against him, now. That, he has figured out, is what Robotnik's latest Doosmday device is all about.

And he's at the centre of it. '_They're my fears_,' he thinks. _'All of them. But I always believed in him, so in the end, those fears didn't matter_.'

And that's the thing about fears, as Chris has learned: the only thing you really have to be scared of is your reaction to them.

And Chris already knows how to deal with a crisis. He knows how you behave in one: you gather your thoughts, you face your fears –no matter how many of them there are– and then you walk right through them and out the other side in one piece.

Well, that's the idea anyway

So he does exactly what the device never expected he would do –he draws the fears _in_ instead of pushing them out. Sonic's speed, Tails mind, Knuckles' Strength, Amy's fury, Cream's love for everyone and everything.

The voice tickles in his mind the way it's tickling in everyone's. _'You can't do that. It'll kill you.' _

'That doesn't mean I can't do it.'

'_You'll die.'_

Chris smiled. 'No. That's just what you wanted me to think. What you wanted me… to be afraid of. And even if it was true, I'm not afraid of dying anymore.'

So many thoughts at the same time. Sonic's mind is touching his now, sensing him across the divide. The Machine's strength has become it's weakness, allowing all their minds to touch in ways their bodies never could. Sonic is right _there_, and so is Amy and Knuckles and Tails. They're reacting instinctively to a message he hasn't sent them since he was twelve years old.

"_I'm here. I need you. Help me._"

And they do.

The last thing which comes to him is Cosmo's memory, smiling and crying at the same time in the back of his mind. The machine beings to self destruct and Chris finds himself smiling, too, at the artificial sky falling apart over his head.

As soon as they all get out of here, they're going to kick some serious butt.

* * *

"_You're afraid and it feels like you're too tired to fight  
Even your heart don't know if you're still alive  
Man, you never felt so all alone in this world tonight  
And I, don't you know that I felt the same?  
I've seen this storm, I've been through the rain  
You've gotta know that I feel your pain  
Don't be afraid_

_When you're on the edge, I will rescue you  
When you need a friend, I'll be there for you  
I'm nobody's hero  
For you I'd lay down my life  
Nobody's hero."_


	18. Where Do We Draw the Line

**These are not songfics. Let me just get that fact out of the way right now. They're short stories **_**inspired**_** by songs. I discovered Scribbler doing something similar with the Kingdom Hearts Videogame series, and decided I'd like to give it a shot. **

**This one is set during the Metarex Saga, at the end, just before they got home to their own planet. **

**Standard disclaimers apply. Reviews and concrit are both appreciated. **

* * *

_**18. Where Do We Draw the Line, Poets of the Fall.**_

* * *

It takes them several weeks to get from the centre of the galaxy back to the very edge of the solar system that they (most of them) call home. Nobody says very much in that time.

It's a long time to keep quiet. Especially if your name is Amy Rose. Cream talks to Cheese a lot, but their communication is muted and rarely understandable to anyone else. Sonic runs, because that's what Sonic does. Knuckles watches the pieces of master Emerald shimmering in the artificial light of the Typhoon's silent engine room. Chris and Tails make plans silently while they work on machines that don't need working on and reprogram things that they'll never use again, with barely a single word spoken. That's pretty much the closest that that anyone ever gets to conversation.

They're thinking. Or remembering is more like it. Remembering explosions and seeds and rising water and a young girl, smiling at the end of the universe. Remembering showers of petals where no flowers should be.

Things are… normal. Or normal as they can be, she supposes, given the circumstances. Amy can see through their artificial normalcy as easily as she does Tails fake optimism and Shadow's fake nonchalance. She can see it, and she can feel it, too. It's not… pressure building up inside of them, like a balloon so much as a dodgy weather pattern. You never know where the next tornado is gonna spring up, but it'll probably be in the place you least expect.

Like on the Blue Typhoon's "Tree-deck", as they call it, for example. It's here that she finds Tails, who has been working none stop for days and whom she hasn't spoken to properly since she saw Sonic leading him back into the Typhoon weeks ago, Tails clinging to his arm the whole time, neither of them saying a word.

Amy smiles because smiling seems like the right thing to do. 'Hey there, Tails.'

He doesn't answer for a second. She hasn't spoken to him about any of this yet. She hasn't spoken to _anyone. _The list of things that they aren't saying could probably fill the whole Typhoon several times over. If the words they haven't spoken were liquid, they would have built up and swirled around and drowned every single one of them.

'Amy…'

'Hm?'

'How… how're we…' _Going to do this? _He wants to say. _Going to keep going after all of this? Go back to being normal? _Amy is kind of glad that he never finished the question, because she has no idea how she's supposed to answer it anyway. Cosmo was better at things like this… Cosmo understood what was going on in the kid's head all the time. Cosmo…

…Isn't here anymore.

Because they killed her together, didn't they? All of them. Not just Tails by pushing the button or Sonic and Shadow by being the ammunition and then not being able to bring her back or Chris by not being able to come up with anything better or Cream for just standing there and begging Cosmo to come back instead of trying to stop her in the first place.

Because Destiny said they had to do it. Amy doesn't _like_ that. She doesn't want to think about being a part of some great conspiracy of the universe, deliberately put in play to transport Cosmo to her own death. Because that was what they did. That was apparently what they were supposed to do this whole damn time. And now they've been rewarded for playing their parts like good little chess pieces and they're getting to go home, and Cosmo…

Well… Maybe she was happy about dying for this stupid cause, but Amy sure as hell isn't.

'_Destiny? Ha. _Screw_ destiny.' _

Tails isn't crying. She wonders whether he can anymore. She wonders where the heck Sonic is and why he isn't out here doing something about all this. She wonders why things have to be so terribly unfair to all of them.

'Hey… It'll be alright,' she says, even though she knows it's anything but true. She doesn't know if they'll ever quite go back to the way things were before they realised that maybe destiny really is in play and maybe it has a bigger plan for all of them.

But she's here.

She's _here_. _They're_ here and they're alive and free and able to continue. For or against destiny. either way. Amy plans to do something with that fact. And woe betide anyone who tries to stop her. For now, however, she'll settle for sitting quietly beneath the artificial palm trees of the Blue Typhoon's outer deck, with her arms around Tails shoulders and the stars shining above their heads.

* * *

_"So why do we keep up this charade?  
And how do we tell apart the time  
to leave from the time to wait?  
What does tomorrow want from me?  
What does it matter what I see?  
If it can't be my design  
Tell me where do we draw the line?_

_Whatever tomorrow wants from me  
At least I'm here, at least I'm free  
Free to choose to see the signs  
This is my line."_


	19. About You Now

**These are not songfics. Let me just get that fact out of the way right now. They're short stories **_**inspired**_** by songs. I discovered Scribbler doing something similar with the Kingdom Hearts Videogame series, and decided I'd like to give it a shot. **

**Standard disclaimers apply. Reviews and concrit are both appreciated. **

* * *

_**19. About You Now, Sugababes**_

* * *

'So when're you gonna call Amy?'

'…Wha?'

_Damn it_. He's in a world of his own again, isn't he? Sonic snaps out of the Chaos Stream he's reading just in time to keep himself from falling backwards off the Tornado's wing when Tails speaks. It's kinda difficult to read Chaos-Waves and fly at the same time.

'Amy Rose. You know, pink hedgehog? One of our closest friends for going on twelve years? Killer shot with a Pico Pico Hammer? When're you gonna call her?'

'Buddy, I _remember_ who she is.' Sure he remembers. Amy Rose is like that. You either know that she exists, or you're blind, deaf and incapable of feeling a hammer connecting squarely with your head.

'That's not answering my question.' Tails pilots the Tornado through a particularly iffy spot of turbulence with barely a shudder. Sonic clings on tightly to both the plane's wing beneath him and his own grip on his brain. Now would be a totally bad time to space out 'cause of Chaos Control. 'You have a deal, remember, Sonic? You both exchange calls on a twice-monthly basis. It was her week to call last time; I know that because I answered it first. So it's your turn this week.'

'It is? Aw, man, I forgot…' _Again_. This is getting to be something of a habit.

Tails chuckles to himself. 'Sonic, if it weren't for me, you wouldn't remember to call _anybody_. You really have to stop letting the Chaos take up so much space in your head.'

He doesn't sound concerned by what he's saying, but Sonic knows that he _is_ concerned. He's always concerned where Sonic and Chaos Control are concerned, particularly in the last few years as the Chaos Calls have started getting louder and more insistent, and Amy's calls have become less and less frequent.

So eventually (after Sonic missed her calling for about the umpteenth time) they established that little rule: she called him the first Tuesday every month at two thirty p.m., and he called her back the third. When he remembers to, that is.

And it's not like he really _means_ to forget, it's just…

Well. Amy or Chaos. The Chaos spirits in his head tend to be a lot easier to talk to these days.

'Meh. I'll call her when we get back to the Workshop.'

'You sure?'

'Sure I'm sure, we're only about five minutes away, right? Even I can't forget something in that time.'

Tails smiles vaguely. 'I dunno about that.'

'What's that supposed to mean?'

Tails looks at him through thick goggles, and they know each other well enough for Sonic to know that the look means "We're really starting to worry about you". 'You know she'll get concerned if you miss another call, Sonic. She's too busy to come visit us very often; the calls are all she has.'

Sonic swallows. 'Man. All those years she spent chasin' me around, and now there's a little more distance between us than there used to be, it suddenly gets really hard to keep in touch.'

'Amy _does_ have a life to live, Sonic. But you know how much she misses us. She doesn't expect you to call her every day, just once in a while.'

'Okay, so I feel a little bad for that. It's just _distracting_, is all…' having seven little voices in his head all the time is like that. Not to mention that Knuckles has developed a habit (probably unintentional, admittedly) of popping into his brain every now and then just to check what he's up to with those Emeralds this time.

Sometimes Sonic wishes for the old days, before the Chaos Energy in the world was amplified and his abilities (and tendency for daydreaming) increased alarmingly along with it. It was easier to focus back then. Easier to think about Amy and Tails and Cream and Chris and everyone else. Easier to do things without worrying that he was gonna space out and go into a power flux that blew out whatever machinery happened to be nearby.

Frankly, he's surprised that Tails trusts him to ride on the Tornado's wing anymore.

Tails smiles. 'Don't worry about it.'

'Who's worrying?'

'_You_ are, Sonic. Seriously. She knows you miss her too and you running away all the time never stopped _me_. You'll have to do a lot worse than forget a few phone calls to get rid of her completely.'

'Oh, good. Soooo you're not gonna complain the next time I go talk to the Chaos?

'Not so long as you don't do it on the Tornado's wing, I guess.'

'Good,' Sonic thinks, and he relaxes just a little, trying not to think about Amy Rose calling.

The Chaos energy in the back of his mind hums contentedly.

* * *

"_I know everything changes,  
I don't care where it takes us,  
'Cus I know how I feel about you  
__  
Can we bring yesterday back around,  
'Cus I know how I feel about you now,  
I was dumb, I was wrong, I let you down,  
But I know how I feel about you now."_


	20. We Might Fall

**These are not songfics. Let me just get that fact out of the way right now. They're short stories **_**inspired**_** by songs. I discovered Scribbler doing something similar with the Kingdom Hearts Videogame series, and decided I'd like to give it a shot. **

**Standard disclaimers apply. Reviews and concrit are both appreciated. **

* * *

_**20. We Might Fall, Ryan Star.**_

* * *

Chris is very familiar with the sensation of falling from a great height. Worryingly so for someone eighteen years old who isn't involved in parasailing or skydiving, actually.

It's started to become something of a personal joke between them. Along the same line as jokes about Amy's tendency to throw tantrums when exposed to comments about Sonic's social life and girls, and Tails tendency to blow things up if he doesn't check the Chaos Energy levels at least _twice_ every time he enters the lab. ("Silly superstitions," grandpa had said, before entering the lab without checking the Chaos levels at _all_ and having something promptly explode in his face.)

"Chris is falling from a great height again. It must be Tuesday."

Chris would probably find the joke a lot funnier if it _didn't_ involve him tumbling headlong to his own doom. That said, he is, disturbingly, pretty much used to it.

'Man, I'm starting to think you want me to catch ya falling all the time.'

'Heh. Well I sure don't want you to drop me.'

'Ngh. Yeah I'm starting to think that's likely, you're totally heavier than you used to be.'

Today it's from the X Tornado –which is kind of silly actually, because they were just _talking_ about how it was really lucky the X Tornado hadn't reacted badly after being flown right through a barrage of attacking Neorex shields. At which point sod's law obviously meant the plane entered a bump of turbulence and Sonic stumbled over. Chris leaned a little too far out trying to rescue him and ended up being the one having to be rescued instead.

Funny how it always seemed to work out that way.

'I'm getting older Sonic. _Again_.' (Nineteen years old next month. Or thirteen, depending on whether or not you count the missing years.) 'Being heavier kind of comes along with that.'

'Man, no kidding.'

'How do you have any sense of weight anyway? We're falling through the air…'

It's still the weirdest sensation. Seeing the ground rushing up to meet you –but rushing in slow motion. Patchworks of cityscape seen from so far overhead that they resemble the pathways and circuits of an exposed motherboard, complete with dim, flickering lights in the rising darkness all around them. Sometimes the air pressure gets to you a little bit and makes your ears pop, but when you're falling from a great height, losing your hearing becomes the last of your worries.

'Of course there's one more thing to deal with now.'

'Yeah.'

'Who's gonna rescue you?'

'Heh… yeah, I kinda never thought of that one. Can you see the Tornado up there.'

'Not through the cloud cover. Can't hear it either. Tails _does _know we fell, right?'

'Sure he knows, I saw the look on his face. And by the way _you_ fell, buddy. _I_ jumped. It'd be kinda hard to miss.'

'True…'

So high up... And the world below and all around him seems so _still_. It's really easy to imagine that you're flying instead of tumbling. These days, he always looks down, because there's really no point in meeting what could be the end with your eyes closed, right? Cosmo had met _her _end with her eyes open and a smile on her pretty face, and Chris wants to follow her example.

Not that he's _going_ to die. Not yet, anyway. He barely had time to acknowledge the fact that "whoa, falling from the plane!" before Sonic was jumping after him. He knows that, as usual, Sonic is the only thing standing between him and death.

Sonic won't let him die.

It's still… unnerving.

'So, _I Spy_?'

'…What? We're falling to our doom and you wanna play _I Spy_?'

Chris shrugs as best he can with his arms around a giant blue hedgehog. 'It's a nice view.'

'…Meh. And they say I'm the weird one. Sure. I figure we can get a few rounds out before Tails catches up.'

Chris is very familiar with the sensation of falling from a great height.

He's also familiar with being caught before he hits the ground, though. So it's all good.

* * *

"_Now that we are older, __I remember youth, _

_Now that we are close to death _

_and close to finding truth. _

_We might fall, we might fall."_


	21. Mulan's Desicion

**These are not songfics. Let me just get that fact out of the way right now. They're short stories **_**inspired**_** by songs. I discovered Scribbler doing something similar with the Kingdom Hearts Videogame series, and decided I'd like to give it a shot. **

**This one takes place during the episode "Teasing Time", when Cosmo is attempting to sneak off the Blue Typhoon in order to respond to a Metarex summons. Chris helps her out, even if he's not entirely sure why. That episode was Chris's crowning moment of Awesome, by the way. **

**Standard disclaimers apply. Reviews and concrit are both appreciated. **

* * *

_**21. Jerry Goldsmith, Mulan's Decision. **_

* * *

'You know, Cosmo, if you're gonna try and sneak off the ship unnoticed, it's a good idea to deactivate the security protocols, first.' Chris says.

...Oh, _roots_.

The sound of his voice echoing across the shuttle bay makes Cosmo jump and jab at random buttons. She isn't familiar with the workings of Amy's ship, so now that the lights are flashing blue and red and yellow, she has no idea how to turn them off again. She almost panics when the sirens start as well, certain that they're announcing her presence loudly to the entire ship: "_**Look out! Look out! Cosmo's trying to run away**_!"

Chris merely smiles, reaches a hand across her console and deactivates them for her. The lights and alarms die away as abruptly as they began, and Cosmo slowly turns to look at him. He's wearing an expression which reminds her of very much of one that Galaxina occasionally used to use. "_Caught you, little sister, now what mess has all your daydreaming gotten you into this time?_"

'So I guess there _was_ more to that message after all, right?' Chris says, examining the keypad in front of her and never quite looking in her direction. 'I guess they knew that only you would understand what we were seeing. One of us is gonna have to learn to speak Metarex, don't you think? We'll be in big trouble if they ever try to contact us and we don't have you there to help us. Not that they'd ever normally contact us, except to throw threats.'

'Chris, I...' Cosmo swallows, shame burning in her steadily yellowing cheeks. She tries hard not to bash any more unexpected keys and folds her fingers tightly around her dress to stop them shaking. 'I didn't mean...'

'It's alright, Cosmo. It's not like you were doing this to hurt us, right?'' Chris says, and Cosmo wants to answer: "_Yes! That's true! I'd never ever do anything to hurt any of you, I promise_!" but the words keep sticking in her throat and emerge instead as a stream of 'I... I... I...'

Chris keeps smiling and for the life of her, Cosmo can't work out why he's doing that. He should be angry with her. Or at the very least confused and asking lots of questions that she can't answer...

What he actually does surprises her more than anything else she's seen today. He turns and walks over to the main control panel in the wall, accessing it with a key-code that only a few people on board have access to.

It's only now that Cosmo notices that Chris is wearing his outside-gear. 'What're you... doing?'

'Turning off the security programs for this room,' Chris answers. 'It's simple, really. Tails doesn't often make mistakes, but the ones he _does_ make? Tend to be exactly the same kinds of mistakes that I always do when _I'm_ programming security systems –I make each system unique in every room. That means I can cut off the codes to this room without setting off alarms all over the ship, but it also means that—Ah.' He pauses, looking at her and rubbing the back of his head sheepishly. 'Sorry, I got a little ahead of myself there, what I mean is we can probably get off the ship without anybody noticing us now. I've circumvented the security system.'

Cosmo opens her mouth to answer but she still can't form the right words. 'Chris, why are you...?'

'Well, you don't think I'm gonna let you go out there alone, do you?'

'But... it's dangerous.'

'I know. That's exactly why I'm going with you,' Chris climbs into the seat behind her and... Cosmo doesn't think she could make him leave now, even if she wanted to.

'Why...' _Are you doing this? Are you helping me? Aren't you angry? Do you really trust me so much_? 'Aren't you upset with me?'

'Not exactly. But I _am_ a little confused. Why are we doing this exactly, Cosmo?' Chris looks at her firmly, and once again, Cosmo sees Galaxina's eyes, staring at her through a face that is very much _not_ her sister's face. The homesickness in her stomach aches more than ever before. And though she doesn't quite know why, she somehow thinks that doing this, following Black Narcissus's call to the Metarex ship, will do something to _change_ that feeling.

She doesn't quite know how to explain this to Chris though, so she just shakes her head and turns her face to the floor of the shuttle bay.

'...Okay.' Chris sighs, leaning back in the passenger chair and activating the safety shield. 'You want answers for something, though. That's enough for me. Besides, I've always fancied the challenge of getting through one of Tails' security systems.'

In spite of everything, Cosmo can feel a smile tugging at the corners of her face. '...Thank you.'

'No problem. Now let's get this over with before Amy notices we're borrowing her ship.'


	22. The Show Must Go On

**These are not songfics. Let me just get that fact out of the way right now. They're short stories inspired by songs. I discovered Scribbler doing something similar with the Kingdom Hearts Videogame series, and decided I'd like to give it a shot. **

**This one is an alternative take on what happened on Space Colony ARK, when GUN invaded and tried to take Shadow away. Standard disclaimers apply. Reviews and concrit are both appreciated. **

* * *

_**22. The Show Must Go On, Queen. **_

* * *

Bullets.

There are bullets _everywhere_. Just like in films. The sound of them rings in Maria's ears as Shadow punches and kicks and tries to drive the men from earth away. Maria has seen enough western movies on her grandfather's projector (which is supposed to be for science films, but he doesn't mind if she uses it) to know exactly what guns look and sound like, and she doesn't much want to know how it _feels_ to have that tiny piece of metal bursting through important parts inside of you and letting out your blood.

She doesn't want to know that at all.

'_Draw_,' she thinks automatically and imagines Shadow stood amidst grey desert sands, fingers twitching over a holster. Maybe if she tries her hardest to imagine that this is all a movie, she'll be able to make it stop. Draw the curtains over the screen and silence the musicians.

But it's _not_ a movie, and nobody will fall silent just because she yells at them or hides her face behind a cushion.

It's all quite simple really. Maria knows how powerful fear can be. She's seen a lot of horror movies too. The really old ones with those silly rubber monsters and blood made out of brown sauce (or at least that's what she's read it was made out of). She knew they were silly and quite, quite fake, but she always ended up hiding behind Shadow with the pillow pulled over her head anyway. Grandpa sometimes takes the reels away from her and hides them, but she always finds them again in the end. Maria would much rather be afraid of brown sauce and grey-and-white monsters than the badness curdling inside of her own body.

She never thought of people from the planet down below as _bad_, but she supposes that some of them must be. At the very least they're… confused. They read all of those papers by her grandfather's rivals, or maybe they've just seen too many movies with men in rubber suits and costumes.

So… that must be what's happened here. They've all decided that Shadow is a monster in a rubber suit and that he's dangerous and wants to hurt them all, just because he looks and acts a little differently to them, and because he's stronger than they are; so they've got scared and tried to hurt him first.

She remembers the first time she ever spoke to Shadow: that had been a little like a movie too. One of those funny science ones that grandpa always chuckled at because they didn't have any _real_ scientists 

and always got everything wrong. She and Shadow had spoken to each other through thick yellowish liquid and even thicker glass. The other little boy on the ARK once told her it looked like dirty water, but Maria knew it wasn't. It was cleaner than anything else. It _had_ to be, to keep the creature healthy.

Thinking about the glass tubes in the middle of a hail of angry voices and brandished guns reminds Maria what her grandfather told her about the escape pods.

That's it, she thinks. That's the way to get Shadow out of here.

And so they run together, once she can grab hold of him and tell him to "stop _fighting_, for goodness sakes, this isn't a Chinese Action Film!" They sneak through ventilation shafts and corridors that they know better than anybody else on the ship. They run like detectives (it's always detectives, for some reason) escaping from the bad guys who are going to be arrested if they let the detectives get away. The detectives always get away in the movies. Though sometimes they lose their jobs or their families or their closest friend, they're still the heroes of the story, and so they always get away. They run away together, to anywhere that will have them. Anywhere.

_Like us_, Maria thinks. Like her and Shadow now, running away to earth. They don't really care where they end up, just like Maria never really cared how the movie is supposed to finish, so long as it's a happy ending. And so long as the heroine isn't completely useless. She doesn't have to rescue anyone, really, just do a little more than stumble around in the darkness and scream and trip over at just the wrong moment.

Maria doesn't trip once as they run through the corridors of the ARK, their feet echoing on metal floors and the shouts and cries of angry bad guys following in their wake. Shadow's hand clutched quite firmly in her own.

When they finally find the right room, the bad guys are far too close behind them. She doesn't have time to open the glass tube and make Shadow get into it. She certainly doesn't have enough time to turn on all the right machines and make the metal doors lock behind her. Besides, even in films, bad guys don't usually have big laser shooting weapons that they can use to blast holes in the combination lock and get the door open much faster. How unfair would _that_ have been?

This isn't a movie. Nobody cares about what's fair or right. Nobody cares about anything except what frightens them and how to get away from it. And it's possible, Maria thinks, that she watches too many movies, anyway.

She's only halfway to the controls that will close the capsule and set Shadow free when the soldiers finally burst through the doorway and point their guns at her. She hears the yelling and the warnings and the sound of triggers being tugged by nervous fingers, and then she hears _herself_ screaming as she makes one last, desperate lunge for the lever, even though that's the kind of thing that useless, troublesome characters do.

And then there is black and red flashing in familiar patterns before her eyes –full colour, she thinks, not like the black and white and sepia tones she gets from her grandfather's projector. No brown blood or plastic fear. Just bright light and the shape of Shadow's body being peppered with bullets and falling like no short man in a rubber suit has ever fallen before: in a way that Maria will never see in a movie.

And it's only now that Maria remembers something else, which seems to be the same in every film, no matter what kind it is or whether it's supposed to be scary: The hero _always_ jumps in front of the girl when someone shoots at her.

* * *

"_Empty spaces, what are we living for?_

_Abandoned places, I guess we know the score, _

_On and on, does anybody know what we are looking for? _

_Another hero another mindless crime_

_Behind the curtain in the pantomime,_

_Hold the line; does anybody want to take it anymore?_

_The show must go on."_


	23. Before the Dawn

**These are not songfics. Let me just get that fact out of the way right now. They're short stories inspired by songs. I discovered Scribbler doing something similar with the Kingdom Hearts Videogame series, and decided I'd like to give it a shot. **

**And this time round I'd like to feel I'm addressing a fundamental issue. Or just putting these characters whom I supposedly love through heck again. Whatever. **

**Standard disclaimers apply. Reviews and concrit are both appreciated. **

* * *

_**23. Before the Dawn, Evanescence.**_

* * *

It's the easiest thing he's ever done.

Which doesn't really make much sense to Chris. After all, just ten minutes earlier he couldn't imagine ever letting Sonic disappear again. Not after all this time, and everything he went through to open the portal. Not after risking life and limb a thousand times, sometimes with nothing but a white gloved hand and a cocky smile between him and the End of the World. Not after being separated, then reunited again, then separated for what was supposed to be the final time, with an entire universe and a dimensional barrier between them. Then being brought together once more, in a place that none of them understood or belonged.

_A world between worlds_, Tails had called it: or a _half-world_, at least; a remnant existence created when their two worlds first separated. They saved the universe from here for the third time; defeated evil, kicked out Eggman and saved a burgeoning species from annihilation. Simple stuff. All in a day's work for Team Sonic. And now they're going home.

It just happens that their homes are in entirely different universes.

'Still sure you're not coming with, Chris?'

'After they went to all that trouble of creating two different portals for us? It'd be a shame not to let grandpa see whether all his hard work has paid off.'

'Still. We don't have to go right _now_,' Sonic shrugs, and Chris... is quite surprised that Sonic is the one who's saying it. 'I mean, it's not like there's a time limit on us this time, right? You could do it, if you wanted to.'

Chris only hesitates for a moment. Because sure, he _wants_ to go home but the memories –of his twelve year old self, of nights looking out across the swimming pool and staring at stars, and running faster than the speed of sound– are almost enough to make him change his mind.

Then he remembers something (someone) very important, and shakes his head.

Sonic nods understandingly. 'It's Helen, right? Pretty sure she's the reason you went back last time. Or a big part of it anyway.'

'...Yeah, it's her. Amongst other things. I'm...' _Not twelve years old anymore. Not bound to you. Not alone. You don't need me now and I don't need you_. '...Doing what's best. It's better for both of us this way, in the end.'

He's right. And Sonic knows he's right. That's why he isn't arguing.

It really is so _simple_ this time. Just a matter of opening his arms and watching Sonic pulling away.

The moon was still there, right? That was the one thing that they'd always had. Or maybe it's easy because Chris is older now and knows better. Because he knows that the gap between the worlds isn't as big as he used to believe it was, and the gap between their hearts is even smaller still.

And okay, so that sounds corny enough to make even _Amy_ roll her eyes, but Chris doesn't particularly care.

Not that he's going to say any of it aloud. Not quite.

'_Why didn't I see it before? It's not the distance that matters...' _

And anyway... they've had time to get used to the idea. Going home hasn't been sprung on them unexpectedly the way it always seemed to be before. In fact, returning to their respective worlds is all that both sides have wanted ever since then ended up here in between them both. Maybe the creatures that are living here can call this world home, but neither Chris, nor Sonic, nor anyone else in their little team desire sticking around any longer than they have to.

If that means being separated again then... well...

'Well, I'll be seeing ya, right?' Sonic seems to remember that he wanted to ask this question at the last second, and turns around just in time. Chris can barely see him through the green glare of the portal that will take him back to his world. Chris's own portal hangs behind him, torn between yellow and pink. Even the colours of their portals clash, he thinks, and wonders when he picked up Mr Tanaka's grasp of colour schemes.

They really don't belong in the same world as each other, do they? This place has showed them exactly what comes of trying things like that.

'Yeah... be seeing ya. Don't upset Amy too much, okay?' _And take her on a date_; he resists the temptation to add at the end.

He thinks that Sonic knows what he was going to say anyway, because he grins that little bit wider before turning away one last time and stepping into the final portal.

* * *

"_Somehow I know that we can't wake again_

_From this dream, it's not real but it's here_

_Maybe tonight, we'll fly so far away_

_We'll be lost before the dawn." _


	24. One World

**These are not songfics. Let me just get that fact out of the way right now. They're short stories inspired by songs. I discovered Scribbler doing something similar with the Kingdom Hearts Videogame series, and decided I'd like to give it a shot. **

**Standard disclaimers apply. Reviews and concrit are both appreciated. **

* * *

_**24. One World, Celtic Woman. **_

* * *

Tikal smiles at him across the void that hangs between them. Deep, green light is everywhere, coating the walls of the cavern and the gorge, and Knuckles is quite sure that he isn't in the Mystic Ruins anymore. Nor is he in the middle of the battle that he's almost certain he was fighting alongside Sonic less than a few seconds ago.

He remembers very little about it, but he _does_ know that the sky had seemed to be tearing open with a thunderous crack over his head, the Master Emerald had been glowing brightly before his eyes, and in its reflection had been Sonic... running towards him, like he was trying to block something heading in Knuckles direction, but whatever it was, the bright green light had come at them out of nowhere and swallowed Knuckles up before he could react. He remembers the chant that Tikal first created. He remembers...

'**Tikal? ...What is it? Is something wrong?'**

His ancestor (cousin? Sister? Chaos only knows, he's never honestly been able to work it out) doesn't answer. She merely smiles at him somewhat sadly and unfolds her arms. She is holding a baby, he realises after a few seconds. Perhaps female, though he can't tell from this distance.

'**It's time.' **

'...Ah.' Knuckles clenches his fists and understands the torn skin of his hands and the charred remains of what had been gloves. He also understands that the Guardian's birthmark is notable absent from his chest.

Apparently the world had been ending all around him, and yet the final blow was dealt by one of Eggman's damned _robots_. Somebody in the afterlife is going to answer for this.

'**It's alright Knuckles. You did a very noble thing. Be assured that your ancestors will remember your deeds, as will your current friends.' **

'A noble thing, eh? Don't suppose I'll be allowed to remember what that thing _was_, at some point?'

'**Eventually. Two worlds were in peril. It was your actions that prevented their destruction. It's... rather peculiar, actually. Sonic himself had predicted the two worlds would come together. I'm **

**amazed that the Chao didn't notice sooner.' **Tikal looks at him, firmly for a moment. **'...I must admit. You're taking this very well.' **

'Yeah, well. It happens to all of us eventually, I suppose,' Knuckles mutters.

He'd probably be more worried if Tikal hadn't clearly sorted out everything for him already. Maybe this is the way things always are with Guardians.

So this is it, then. _Into the green abyss_. The place of Guardians long past. And all because Sonic didn't throw his damn punch fast enough. Typical. The guy _lives_ on overkill and tension but the one time that Knuckles actually _needs_ him to be as fast as his namesake...

Oh well.

'**Would you like to hold her?**' Tikal asks, holding the bundle out towards him.

Knuckles flinches in a way he didn't even flinch at his own death. '...Hold... her?' Knuckles blinks at the squirming bundle in Tikal's arms. 'What, me?'

'**Of course. She's your successor after all. She's yours. In a peculiar way**.'

Knuckles pauses for a moment, then glimpses into the darker green of the chasm below. 'Yeah, we have a problem here,' he says, and Tikal laughs.

'**Walk. Physical things do not bind you any longer. You no longer have to be afraid of falling.' **

He believes her automatically and takes several steps forwards into the void, as does she. True to her word: neither of them fall, and they meet in the centre of the chasm, and she shifts the blanketed infant into his arms. He's uncomfortable, at first (be damned if he knows how you're supposed to handle these things) but the child settles automatically and remains asleep. On its chest is branded an all too familiar crescent moon.

Knuckles... blinks.

'Wait, is this a—?'

Tikal smiles and nods. **'Yes.'**

Knuckles isn't sure whether to laugh or not. 'Oh... you've got to be _kidding_, Tikal; I thought it had to be a...'

'**There is no rule stating that the Guardian **_**must**_** be an echidna**,' Tikal says. '**Chaos thought this was... appropriate. We believe she will take after you**.'

'Really?' Knuckles finds himself grinning. 'I'll say this for ya then, kid, you're not gonna have an easy time of it... What's her name?'

'**She doesn't have one, yet. The honour of naming her is assigned to the previous Guardian. Be quick. We don't have long and I wouldn't like her to go out there without a name.**'

This is something else that Knuckles wasn't expecting to be asked today. He can only gaze at the sleeping spirit for a few seconds longer. He doesn't know much about female names. Doesn't know much about females in _general_, actually, except for the facts that they're annoying and flippant and not to be messed with.

There is one name he can come up with, however...

'...Cosmo.' He mutters, as the infant chews at the remains of his charred gloves in its sleep. 'Name her that.'

Tikal nods in understanding and takes the baby back from his arms, it stirs awake as it returns to her and for a second, Knuckles sees it has the brightest pink eyes he has ever seen. **'Thus it was said, thus it shall be. May the Power of Chaos be with you always, Cosmo the Hedgehog.' **

* * *

"_I hear a baby crying,_

_A sad sound, a lonely sound_

_I want to take her in my arms and _

_Then I dry away all her tears."_


	25. Edge of Thorns

**These are not songfics. Let me just get that fact out of the way right now. They're short stories inspired by songs. I discovered Scribbler doing something similar with the Kingdom Hearts Videogame series, and decided I'd like to give it a shot. **

**I have a theory about Sonic and Shadow's relationship which I draw upon quite abstractly in this chapter. Anyone who can guess what that relationship is gets to choose a song and have one f these ficlets dedicated to them based on that song. **

**Standard disclaimers apply. Reviews and concrit are both appreciated. **

* * *

_**25. Edge of Thorns, Savatage. **_

* * *

There are many things which Shadow knows he'll never share with anyone.

Which is... peculiar, really. He has had over fifty years and several mind wipes in which to forget, and yet these things remain inside of him, determined not to be driven out. They aren't memories so much as impressions. Things which would be memories were it not for the fact that his mind doesn't seem to want to allow him to hang onto things like that.

For example: he knows things about Sonic the Hedgehog.

He's not certain what these things are. The memories of his time before the Metarex came are slim and faint in his mind, except for those which have Sonic in them. Sonic or Maria. Or Sonic _and_ Maria, and this is the strangest impression of all. Even though he knows they can't possibly have known each other –hell, they didn't even exist in the same _time period. _Sonic the Hedgehog has never known Maria as anything more than the motivation behind the near destruction of earth, and he never will– Shadow sometimes dreams of them together. They're on earth, running through snowy fields at sunset. Maria's eyes glow, the way they use to in the light from the earth far below while sitting in their observation room.

But she was always frowning then, and here she is smiling: laughing in fact, so hard that her cheeks are turning red and tears are running down her face. When he tries to interact with them, his presence is pushed away. As if they're inside some kind of deep, glass bubble that no one but themselves can enter.

He... hates it. The faker who never understood, and Maria, together, but every attempt to break through the bubble just pushes him further away. As if he's feeding it with his anger. Then Shadow always wakes up and spends the rest of his time awake pretending that the uneasy feeling in his body is just his overactive senses, keeping him ahead of every move his enemies may be about to make.

He tries to think less and less about Maria, these days, mainly because the memories he does have are so vague and distant that they only frustrate him. They remind him of a loneliness so deep that he can feel it in ever bone of his body, hurting more than anything has ever hurts anyone before. And Shadow doesn't like to show pain, given that he so rarely experiences it.

From the first moment he met Sonic (every "first" moment, because there have been several now and to be honest, Shadow is getting sick of all these reintroductions) he had known that something about the hedgehog was different. Connected in some way, to Shadow's first life. The Chaos Control in him understands these things better than Shadow understands himself it draws Sonic to him again and again, like a moth to a burning black and red flame, not caring how much it gets burned.

Shadow hates this fact as well. The fact that the only constant thing in all of his erased pasts is that infernal hedgehog. The fact that the one part of his existence he thought was free from memories of this creature, who is so like him and yet so different, is being invaded through his own dreams. That Maria should smile at Sonic the way she once smiled only for Shadow. These are things of the past, and Shadow is determined to find a present free from those memories, if Sonic would just stay away from him and let him get on with it.

So Shadow sleeps little, remembers even less, and keeps the dreams of Maria and Sonic together in the snowfall to himself.

* * *

"_I have seen you on the edge of dawn_

_Felt you here before you were born_

_Now watch your dreams upon the edge of thorns_

_But I don't think about you anymore."_


	26. Nobody's Side

**These are not songfics. Let me just get that fact out of the way right now. They're short stories inspired by songs. I discovered Scribbler doing something similar with the Kingdom Hearts Videogame series, and decided I'd like to give it a shot. **

**When this song came on my MP3 Player, I realised with a certain degree of alarm that I had not yet done a single ficlet about Rouge in this entire collection. This will not do, and this was the perfect song to change that. **

**Standard disclaimers apply. Reviews and concrit are both appreciated. **

* * *

_**26. Nobody's Side, Chess Soundtrack. **_

* * *

Rouge has never pretended to understand this crazy, backwater planet.

Earth, they call it. The people who live here insist on naming their planet after a clod of dirt, but it's more thought that anyone's ever given to anything on her world, she supposes. Then again these humans spend most of their lives _thinking_.

Rouge honestly doesn't get it. Wasting their short existences and shining gems on inane issues and government procedures. Topaz says that these complications are a necessary evil to keep the people of this world in check.

('Stops people like Doctor Eggman from crawling out of the woodwork and going insane too often, you know?'

'Hm. ')

Rouge wonders, in a rare moment of honest thought, whether or not the way the people of earth do things causes more problems than all their paperwork and money-pushing solves.

But that isn't her problem, in the end. She's looking for what she can get out of it, and so long as she can milk the current situation for what she desires, she doesn't have much problem with going along with the humans' way of doing things. And what she wants is bright, shining, and something that humans seem more than willing to flaunt in every direction. If their wasting time and energy on all their paperwork and words distracts them for long enough for her to get a paw in, then that's fine with her.

Topaz knows this. In fact, she frequently _reminds_ Rouge of it. "You're a thief" She'll say, and it sounds far more like a statement of fact than any kind of insult. Topaz is at least classy enough for that, Rouge supposes. And where Topaz is concerned, that's really saying something. Elegance just isn't her thing.

_We'll have to work on that_; _teach the woman a little bit about real glamour_, Rouge thinks sometimes, and is surprised with herself for actually meaning it.

If there is one thing Rouge the Bat knows she understands, then its beauty. She knows when it's internal, based on confidence and certainty and your own knowledge of yourself as well as your body, and when it's pasted on and decorated with gaudy stones and nine-carat gold. She knows when ugliness hides under elegance, and when beauty is hidden under grubby slacks or sensible uniforms.

Topaz could _probably_ be pretty if she put her mind to it. Probably. But she doesn't seem to care about anything like that. Like all humans, she's all wrapped up in this silly thing called _duty_. She only cares about that, and the darned paperwork and stopping Rouge's fun every chance she gets. Her loss.

And it's not that she's letting Topaz or any of that paper-based complicated diplomacy stuff gets to her. Not really. Rouge s the kind of bat who takes what she can get when she can get it. And right now, in a world full of humans, working for a government which is more than willing to part with jewels for the sake of security, Rouge is taking everything she can get.

* * *

"_Everybody's playing the game, _

_But nobody's rules are the same_

_Nobody's on nobody's side_

_Better then to go it alone, _

_Recognize you're out on your own_

_Nobody's on nobody's side."_


	27. Sonic Heroes

**These are not songfics. Let me just get that fact out of the way right now. They're short stories inspired by songs. I discovered Scribbler doing something similar with the Kingdom Hearts Videogame series, and decided I'd like to give it a shot. **

**When this song came on my MP3 Player, I realised with a certain degree of alarm that I had not yet done a single ficlet about Rouge in this entire collection. This will not do, and this was the perfect song to change that. **

**Standard disclaimers apply. Reviews and concrit are both appreciated. **

* * *

_**27. Sonic Heroes, Crush 40. **_

* * *

'Wait, wait, hold on a second... okay. Are we filming?

'Got it. Achem. This is Scarlet Garcia reporting from the Station Square Elementary School. Or to be exact, what _remains_ of Station Square Elementary, given the string of attacks that broke out there less than an hour ago. Officers on the scene are still attempting to determine the exact cause behind a series of explosions all across the building and the nearby Green Park District, but there have been reported sightings of smaller versions of Robots commonly associated with attacks by Doctor Robotnik and...

'...Franklyn, why am I reading this for a recording? I'm pretty sure it's redundant, people already know what's going on, how its gonna happen and who's gonna come and stop it all for the umpteenth time this...'

'_You want that Pulitzer; you gotta earn it, Red.' _

'Sigh. Okay, if you say so. As I speak the attack is reaching new levels of hostility and the flying craft commonly known as the X-Tornado has arrived on scene to join the chaos. Witnesses have also reported the arrival of the Egg-Carrier known to be the airborne base of the infamous Doctor Eggman and...

Ah... yes. Ladies and gentleman, that noise you're hearing back there would be the sound of a giant robot exploding in the middle of a parking lot. While we've been unable to gain any first hand reports from our other-worldly defenders, we do believe that they're gaining the upper hand on our attackers and are, for want of a more technical definition, making scrap metal out of them. Citizens are advised to remain calm since all the local children have been evacuated from the building and are currently being transported to—'

'Hey, guys, look, it's that reporter from the news channel!'

'Come on, man, I don't watch the news how am I supposed to know who she is?'

'Sure you know her! She did the reports at the Big Battle Tournament, remember? The one that Robot won and then went all crazy at.'

'Oh, yeah! Wow, my dad really likes her!'

'Are they gonna film Sonic? Hey, lady are you gonna film Sonic?!'

'Ah... yes that... would be why we're here. Provided that he's actually here to report on, that is.'

'Oh he's here, lady, you bet he's here, we saw him!'

'Really?'

'Yeah! Well, we saw something blue going really, _really_ fast .I bet it was him.'

'Uh... well would you care to tell our viewers exactly what it was that you kids saw? (Like try before we take you to the emergency area where you're supposed to be)?'

'We're gonna be interviewed on television?! The guys at school are gonna be so jealous! I betcha even Chris didn't ever get to be on TV!'

'It was awesome, lady!! The robots blew up the whole gym in one go, _kaboom_! Now we don't have to have class there tomorrow!

'And we won't have science either, maybe they'll even cancel school for the day!'

'And Amy Rose was there with that awesome hammer!'

'And the X-Tornado!'

'Meh, the tornado's just a dumb plane; it wasn't as cool as Amy Rose.'

'Ha! You're only saying that because she's pink.'

'Am _not_, Thomas! Amy Rose is awesome! You just don't wanna believe that _girls_ can fight just as good as boys can.'

'Uh... kids?'

'Oh, yeah. Sorry lady. Yeah, it's really cool! Sonic's gonna kick all of those robots asses!'

'_David_ you said a bad word! On _TV_!'

'So what? I'm not scared! Wait, is this film going live? _Cool_, hiya, mom! Look at me, I'm on TV!'

'And now there's no way we'll have to go to class tomorrow!'

'Yeah, Sonic's a hero!'

'A _real_ hero! Like in comic books! C'mon, Dahlia, let's go see if we can get some souvenirs from those robots they just blew up in the park!

Okay! Seeya miss reporter lady!

Hey! What a second there we need to take you to... oh.. .well ... Um... I guess this means that nobody's currently panicking. Well... good. You should all keep... not panicking like that. Um... Wait a second we're getting a breaking news report from our Runner here...

'Yeah. Just as we suspected, folks. It looks like those kids were right, and Sonic the Hedgehog is on the scene even as we speak. Heh, Looks like there really is nothing to worry about except the upcoming property damage and children that won't calm down for a week. Now if you'll excuse me, I have an on-location elementary school robot attack to get to. Maybe I'll get some souvenirs too. This is Scarlet Garcia reporting for Station Square Channel Three News.'

* * *

'...Oh dear, I don 't think that was what you meant to happen, Sonic.'

'Aw, man... we are in _so_ much trouble. '

'You mean _you're _in so much trouble_. _I _told_ you not to run into it like that. Now the whole building is shot and Mister Thorndyke's gonna have to pay to have it all fixed again... I don't think Eggman will foot the bill.'

'Chris is gonna kill us.'

'Nah, his _grandpa's_ gonna kill us, Chris is gonna be on our side.'

'How can you be so sure?'

'Because that robot put a hole right through his classroom wall. We just got him outta double Geography tomorrow. Come on, guys, let's go finish off those Bad'niks.'

'Right, Sonic! Let's go! But uh... let's try to blow up fewer buildings this time, huh?'

'Gotcha.'

* * *

"_And together we're stayin' strong no matter how,_

_No one can bring us down. Hee-eey,_

_Sonic Heroes (Sonic Heroes)_

_Find you confine you, defying your place,_

_Sonic Heroes (Sonic Heroes)_

_Saving the stage for our heroes...' _

* * *


	28. Comatose

**These are not songfics. Let me just get that fact out of the way right now. They're short stories inspired by songs. I discovered Scribbler doing something similar with the Kingdom Hearts Videogame series, and decided I'd like to give it a shot. **

**This fic is directly related to the events which took place in the very first fanfic in this collection, "**_**Unbound**_**". Think of it as a sequel. **

**Standard disclaimers apply. Reviews and concrit are both appreciated. **

* * *

_**28. Skillet, Comatose. **_

* * *

Amy Rose does not pretend that she ever stopped waiting for Sonic the Hedgehog. Though sometimes, her friends humour her and pretend that they think otherwise.

She's still waiting. Has been for what feels like forever now. Just like she promised she would. The fact that he may not have heard her _making_ that promise –he probably didn't hear much at all; except maybe for the rush of Chaos in his ears, and Amy Rose screaming into the darkness about what an idiot he was being– doesn't really matter. She'll still wait, even if she sometimes gets a little tired of it.

She sits beneath the statue they made for him and placed in the middle of town, and thinks about all the things she has to tell him when he comes back to them. About how they dealt with Eggman time and time again –defeating him even without Sonic the Hedgehog's help. She'll tell him all about the time she spent in the Emerald Caves helping rebuild the destroyed homes of thousands of New Mobians. She'll tell him about the journey they took together to find Tails' parents and how they discovered them in the most unlikely of places, and how they saved the universe again, from the aftershocks of the first Judgment Day. Yeah, _that_ Judgement Day. Or Judgement _Night_ had been more like it. The one he'd... disappeared right in the middle of. Into that damned _gateway_ or whatever it had been...

She'll tell him about how people waited for him for such a very long time while the world rebuilt itself in the wake of the almost-apocalypse. And how she waited the longest of all. She waited long after the Seed that Tails kept in his basement grew into a pretty; pink-petal haired girl who adored hearing stories about her kind and beautiful mother who saved the universe, and called Tails "Papa" and Amy "Auntie". She lived with them until adulthood, and then headed for the stars in search of others of her kind. Long after Cream grew older and started blushing at boys and making dresses instead of flower rings. Long after the final message and photographs came to them from Chris and Helen, through a time-warp distorted portal that made them look almost as old as Grandpa Chuck, and long after Tails had smiled and patted the Statue's golden foot fondly one final time before disappearing forever into the distance in the X Tornado. Amy doesn't know where Tails went (heck, she doesn't know where any of them went, really), but she hopes he's (they're) happy there.

Knuckles was the last to leave. Amy found him one day when she came to talk to the statue in the Square, the way she did every morning just before sunrise. He was standing there, staring at the statue with a thoughtful expression that she doesn't understand to this day. He nodded at her then, smiled, and disappeared just the way Tails had. Except that Tails hadn't glistened with green light, or left an afterglow in her vision long after he vanished.

And after that... Well. After that it's just Amy Rose.

She spent a lot more time waiting after that. Not much else for her to do. The city doesn't need her so much anymore. There are younger, newer heroes to deal with whatever the current bad people are throwing at them (though she'd really like to have a word with that damn Hawk who keeps pulling back-flips over Sonic's Statue and sticking his dirty feet in the fountain, if only he'd _listen_ to her) and it's been a long time since anyone heard the name "Eggman" muttered in fear or apprehension, except maybe in children's history classes.

She'll tell Sonic, Amy thinks one cool autumn morning, how children still whisper Sonic's name into the darkness whenever they're frightened that the Badnikman will come and get them if they misbehave. And how she has waited for him all this time, though others came and went and returned, and then disappeared forever. She has never left. Not really. She has never stopped _waiting_ for that dumb jerk to show up already and take her home, the way he always did in the old days.

And they really are the _old_ days now, Amy thinks. It's been such a long time since they all sat together, she and Sonic and Tails and Cream and Chris and Knuckles... Well, okay, not so much Knuckles, but even he showed up every once in a while. And... he had always been _there_, really, even when he wasn't. All you had to do was call him. Amy Rose kind of wishes she'd realised that years ago. The darn Echidna shouldn't have been that cagey.

Boys could be so dumb, sometimes.

For him. She did it all for him. And now, sometimes, people even chant the name "Amy Rose" into the waters of the fountain, and evoke her name for the sake of their loved ones, and how the children of the town don't stop and talk to her anymore, even though the girls often wear crowns of flowers and leave wishes in golden rings for her in the fountain. They never seem to see her standing right there before them while they're asking her to grant their wishes for happiness and pretty dresses and nice boyfriends, but Amy Rose supposes that this is understandable. She isn't beautiful the way she once was. She's nothing much to look at, really.

She'll tell him, she tells herself one winter day, as she sits over the still fountain counting the coins lying in its depths and gently patting the statue's feet, that she has had a good, long life, and that although she has missed him all this time, the pain is different, these days. More of a distant memory: an ache of something which used to be and isn't any longer. Like the statue itself, she thinks; which once glistened so brightly that the sun's reflections against it blinded everyone within range. Now it's more of a gentle shimmer, tarnished by time and softened by decades of rain, snow and hail.

Amy gazes at her outstretched hand and realises for the first time that she can see the mottled gold-green surface of the statue through her fingertips.

She wonders whether he'll care much for her, looking so old and ugly. Then she decides that it's been such a long time, surely he'll be so happy to see her again that he won't really care what she looks like. And _he'll_ still look the same of course; young and mysterious. And he'll be blue, she thinks. Like the tips of her fingers in the coldest seasons of her long wait. Not gold and glistening like his statue the way he had on the day he disappeared from her life. From _all_ their lives. The day he stopped being a hero and everyone started talking about him as if he was a legend. The day that they all learned to live without him.

Well. Everybody needs a hero, right? Someone who they will sit for through all weathers. Someone who teaches them to hang on...

It figures, Amy thinks, as the wind –finally,_ finally_ !– picks up around her in that familiar, reminiscent way. When she feels that familiar fluttering sensation in her stomach, which had matured so much with age and time that it now feels less like a swarm of butterflies and more like a flock of Flickies. Sonic the Hedgehog had always been the fastest thing alive to everyone who ever knew him. And yet he's _late_.

'...Hey there, Sonic. You took your time, didn't you? You have any idea how long I've been waiting for you to ask me out on a date? I figured you'd get an answer to me like _before_ my dying day.

'...But I never doubted you'd come back. Don't you worry about that. So, can we go now?'

Her hand is no longer transparent when she slips it into his. And then, like Tails and Knuckles and Chris and all the others before her, Amy pats the tarnished statue fondly one last time, and disappears into the darkness.

* * *

"_I hate living without you, dead wrong to ever doubt you_

_My demons lay in waiting tempting me away_

_Oh how I adore you, oh how I thirst for you_

_Oh how I need you..."_

* * *


	29. Drought

**These are not songfics. Let me just get that fact out of the way right now. They're short stories inspired by songs. I discovered Scribbler doing something similar with the Kingdom Hearts Videogame series, and decided I'd like to give it a shot. **

**Standard disclaimers apply. Reviews and concrit are both appreciated. **

* * *

_**29. Vienna Teng, Drought. **_

* * *

On the planet of Teng, they call the months of summer "_Dustimé_", meaning "arid".

It's something to do with the weather patterns and the way the seemingly endless volcanic hills around every city affect the air. Or so one of the locals told him. They also told him a bunch of stories about the gods beneath the earth, who, fed by the heat of their Planet Egg, breathed their hot breath across the entire world, to test them until winter came.

Tails just nods a lot and tries his hardest to understand why this meant nobody on Teng wanted air conditioning. The heat rising from the stone pathways distorts the air makes the world around them wobble and tremble, the same way as cars sometimes trembled on the roads of Station Square in the summer. The earth is warm, dusty and clings to his paws and sometimes, they have to jump across huge cracks that the dryness has carved into the sidewalks.

The village elder (who calls herself Veia, and talks an awful lot about the Gods of Heat and the upcoming rainy season) is leading them through the dried out streets of her city to the place where their Planet Egg has been hidden, to keep it safe from the Metarex. Veia –a scaled creature; probably of salamander decent or something– talks a great deal about a great many things, but mostly, she talks about the anger of the gods which will rain down upon them if their Planet Egg is taken away. She believes in these gods unwaveringly, yet when Tails asks what they look like, she says that she cannot possibly describe them. She "knows" only that they are like the fire, devouring everything in their paths and taking whatever shape tries to contain them. "They who are brilliant in life and black as ash in death."

"Yeah, right," Sonic pauses to knock some dust out of his shoes. "So what about when the mountains all blow up on ya? That doesn't sound so brilliant to me..."

Veia merely smiles a toothless smile and takes Sonic's usual irreverence with the manner of a person who had been dealing with harshness and irreverence all her life. "The gods protect us when they release their fire into the skies. And we protect each other. There are greater dangers than the fire in this world, blue one. We believe in our fiery lords' decisions."

"Heh. Whatever works for you, lady. So can we get a soda over here or something? I'm parched..."

While Cream and Amy chew Sonic out for being rude to their hosts, Tails looks up at the faint red sky and the smoking volcanic hills that seem to surround the city on every side, sucking the energy out of the air. They seem so strong and powerful, enfolding the entire city in their heat and stone. Tails can almost believe in the Fire Gods, too.

Tails watches Cosmo a lot of the time as they walk, picking her way daintily across the cracked cobbles around them. Unlike Amy, who pushes her feet firmly through the dirty road and rubs the sand disdainfully away, Cream who hops along on her toes, and Sonic who is zipping around them too quickly to care about what the ground beneath him looks like, Cosmo barely seems to even _want_ to touch the earth. She watches every step she takes quite carefully, lifting up the hem of her skirt away from the soil.

It takes Tails a while to work out exactly why this is. Cosmo is, after all, a plant.

When Veia is finished talking to him (she really likes talking) and after Tails has reassured them that the Metarex are nowhere close by, Tails goes to find Cosmo.

She's by the fountain in the middle of the square: warmed by the surrounding hot pools, and almost empty in these driest of months. She has her toes dipped into the shallow water.

'Hey there.'

'Hello Tails.'

He figures it won't hurt to join her. The water is warm when he touches it. Probably warmer than she wants it to be, but Cosmo, for all her experience and suffering, isn't really one to complain about these things.

Coolness seems to be an alien concept to the Tengi.

'It's... very hard out here, isn't it?' Cosmo says, softly.

'You wanna go back to the ship? I'm sure it'll be a lot cooler there. I'm sorry, Cosmo, I forgot. I didn't think...'

'No, it's alright. It's just... all these people... the world they're living in...' Cosmo gazes around, and Tails finds himself following her gaze, as if wondering exactly what she's looking for. The scaled citizens of Teng are scattered around them, occasionally glimpsing their way in curiosity. Children build mountains out of rocks and knock them down again with their tails, laughing and grinning, and play at hopping close to the bubbling pools that Tails is quite sure _don't_ containwater_. _

It's kind of amazing, actually, Tails realises. The way Veia and her people stand so tall and proud; comfortable amidst the sweltering heat of a world which experiences severe drought for thirteen out of its fourteen months. 'They're so well adapted to their environment,' he murmurs. 'It's like... they really _belong_ here, isn't it? Even though it must seem a very difficult world to live in to us.'

'Yes, that's exactly it,' Cosmo's face un-creases, as if Tails has said just what she has been trying so hard to put into words. Tails pointedly doesn't ask her about the world she came from: a place of lush leaves, cool summers and solid wood. A place, she had once told him, where metal meshed perfectly with foliage and where people were born from seeds and died as trees.

He knows her well enough, he thinks, to know what to say. Things have been... a little different between them, since they left the planet of Marmol, though he's still not totally sure why. It's like he understands what she does and doesn't want to talk about, and when. Like they're reading each other's thoughts through bristling fur and chlorophyll coated hair.

'It's... not exactly easy to live here, is it?' she says, softly, and then, speaking as if she has come to a tremendous realisation. 'But... it's still beautiful. To the Tengi, the volcanos are their "Mother".'

'Uh... ' Tails pauses for a second, sand then that strange feeling returns to him, and he realises exactly what Cosmo means. 'I... think I get it. Sometimes this world is harsh to them, or challenges them...'

'But overall, she wants them to be happy,' Cosmo finishes, smiling faintly and wriggling her toes in the water.

'Well... yeah. Something like that. That's what I figure from what Veia told me, anyway.'

'Yes, that makes sense; mothers always want the best for us, however difficult our lives may be,' Cosmo says, and though Tails is fairly sure he understands her a lot better now than he used to, he still doesn't think he understands _this_.

'Veia told me that... it'll be their rainy season soon. So it'll cool down a lot then,' he says. 'I don't know whether the Tengi will like that, though. They seem so comfortable in the heat and dry.'

Cosmo nods.

'Yes. But... I suppose we all need to experience things we aren't comfortable with sometimes.'

* * *

"_And the taste of dried up hope is in my mouth_

_And the landscape of merry and desperate drought_

_One side of myself, and with knowing came love_

_I would know love again if I had faith enough._

_Too far is next spring, and a jubilant shower_

_So angels, inside is the only way out." _


	30. God is a Girl

**These are not songfics. Let me just get that fact out of the way right now. They're short stories inspired by songs. I discovered Scribbler doing something similar with the Kingdom Hearts Videogame series, and decided I'd like to give it a shot. **

**This is one of those songs that, for some mysterious reason, makes me cry. Which is odd because it's the dance remix version and not really something you'd associate with tugged heartstrings but so be it. **

**This fic is in the same continuity as fic number **_**29: Skillet, Comatose**_**, and number **_**01: Robbie Robertson, Unbound**_**. **

**Standard disclaimers apply. Reviews and concrit are both appreciated. **

* * *

_**30. Groove Coverage, God is a Girl. **_

* * *

Amy often listens to the children when they talk about of the _Legend of the Star Princess_.

Yeah. Sounds just like something out of an old story book, doesn't it? But the Star Pricness was real. In a way. They used to tell _her_ the story too, sometimes, sitting with her on the edge of Sonic's statue in front of the fountain, laughing and gesturing wildly as they told what was never quite the same story twice, and which varied widely depending upon which childwas telling it. To some children the Star Princess is a fairytale told to them by their parents, or a goddess who could make theflowers bloom just by touching them, or a magical creature that fell from the sky (almost right), or just a fragment from their history books –and a very _old_ fragment at that. To others she was somebody you asked to help your garden grow, whenever the cherry trees blossomed in the square every summer. She was represented by a blossom made out of their clenched hands; held up to the sky, and then opened.

Well. All of those are partly true, Amy supposes. Though it's been so many decades since the battle out in space –the _real_ battle and the _true_ story– that sometimes she wonders whether or not the whole thing was just a dream; maybe one stuck in her mind by the Princess herself.

_Star Princess_. It's a silly, childish moniker given to someone who would probably have blushed at being called something so dramatic. Though technically, Amy supposes that a Princess is almost what she was. The daughter of their leader, Cosmo had been the last of her kind and had become the first in the same breath.

It's amazing, really. How quickly and easily reality and fact can warp into legend. But then, she supposes that she knows a lot about those things.

She feels the desire to correct them, sometimes. To tell them that their "Star Princess" was not nearly so remarkable or unearthly as the stories make her out to be; to tell them that she was in fact a timid young girl, who blushed easily and smiled politely. That she always tripped over anything in her path and often fell asleep atthe windows of the _Blue Typhoon_. She wants to tell them that their Star Princess cried at the sight of dead flowers and hated to see anyone fighting, especially her friends. That she spent most of her time all torn up by guilt for things she couldn't do anything about. That sometimes, she could hear voices in her head, and curled up in her room crying and trying to hide from them. To tell them that she was terrified and hurt and scared and infinitely brave.

She wants to tell them that the Star Princess's name was Cosmo, and that she wasn't a princess at all. Just a little girl who lost everything she cared about, and then gave everything else she'd found again to save the universe. She wants to tell them just how beautiful and amazing she had looked in her final form –a blossoming tree, spreading the seeds of her clan throughout the galaxy. Life from death.

Something about what Cosmo had done that day had spread throughout the galaxy, delivered by the excited tongues of newborn Neo-Seedrians all across the galaxy, and the sad stories of old friends who has watched the Princess die. Amy isn't sure what it is exactly, but Cosmo has lived on across the universe, in the minds and mythologies of people who never even knew her.

But Amy Rose knew her. And Amy Rose will always remember the truth.

* * *

"_She wants to shine forever in time_

_She is so driven she's always mine_

_Clearly and free she wanted to be_

_A part of the future –a girl like me. _

_There is a sky in the remaining us_

_Someone is out there that we truly trust, _

_There is a rainbow for you and me, _

_A beautiful sunrise eternally. _

_God is a girl..." _

* * *


	31. The World's Not Falling Apart

**These are not songfics. Let me just get that fact out of the way right now. They're short stories inspired by songs. I discovered Scribbler doing something similar with the Kingdom Hearts Videogame series, and decided I'd like to give it a shot. An optimistic and happy song for you here. Think of this fic as taking place within an alternate universe where Sonic and the others didn't return home to their own world in episode 52. **

**Standard disclaimers apply. Reviews and concrit are both appreciated. **

* * *

_**31. Dar Williams, The World's Not Falling Apart. **_

* * *

It's incredible.

There's really no other word for it. Not one that Chris can think of, anyway. It's just incredible. _Sonic_ is incredible, and everyone knows it. They're all staring and laughing and pointing at the sky, holding up their children to get a better look at them, because there's nothing else that they can do, except maybe sigh and/or collapse in relief.

Sonic has not moved from where he's standing now for the last five minutes. Even though he's used to hundreds of people cheering at him, this is something just a little... different.

Cream of course is making an event out of this whole thing. Not that it wasn't already quite an event without her help. 'Woooow. Look at all the people who have come to see us, Cheese! There must be thousands!'

'_Chao, chao!' _

Cream is right. There _must_ be thousands. All the people who have been glued to their television sets, or to the vibrant, brightly coloured battles between man and monster that have been raging in the sky for hours, are now stood in the streets below them waving their arms and applauding, their voices carried upwards by the wind. The strange lights and images have disappeared as if they never existed. The sky is white and filled with clouds.

The only downfall? Is that it's really _cold_ up here. About the only one of them who looks at all comfortable is Knuckles and heck, he didn't even flinch when he had five hundred Neorex threatening him with destruction. Far be it for Knuckles the Echidna to _shiver_.

'So uh,' Francis steps back from the edge, grinning. 'Guys? What exactly do we do now?'

'I dunno, stand here and enjoy ourselves?' Sonic says.

Amy laughs. 'Oh, _sure_, maybe you can survive on adulation alone, but it's freezing up here, Sonic!'

'Oh c'mon, Amy it's not that cold,' Danny says.

'Says you, mister "I have a jacket and covered knees".'

'Amy's got a point,' Tails says, though he is still grinning just as much as everyone else. 'How the heck are we gonna get _down_ from here anyway? The Phase Typhoon's engines were completely shot on re-entry.'

'We'll cross that bridge when we come to it?' Sonic suggests.

'But we _have _come to it,' Knuckles says, bluntly. 'Or more like come down on top of it. This is gonna be all over the papers tomorrow._' _

'Yes, I don't think the Phase Typhoon was designed to be parked on top of the Statue of Liberty like this.' Cream pipes up helpfully, leaning as far over the edge as she dared and waving to the people far below.

'Well, it's better than being bounced up and down on nets strung over a land-moving ship,' Tails grins.

Chris would've debated that point, but he really didn't feel like arguing with anything right now. They had just won quite a "dispute" with inter-dimensional beings of immense power, after all.

They _did it_. They defeated the last manifestation of Dark Oak in this world. They sent Dark Sonic back into the shadows where he belonged. They circumnavigated the entire world, found all of the missing Chaos Emeralds, restored the Master Emerald, and sealed away the monstrous alternate dimension that had filled the skies, all in one _afternoon_.

True, they _have_ caused some pretty severe damage to the Statue of Liberty, but he's too elated by the fact that they're all still alive to care.

Danny chortles and nudges Chris hard in the ribs. 'Yo, Chris, this probably counts as good advertisement for your father's company. Plus it's not every day we get an ovation. _Wave already_.'

'Danny. Cut it out, this is embarrassing enough as it is.'

'Ha! You know for a guy raised by a film star you don't have nearly enough stage presence.'

'Remind me _why_ we picked you up again?'

''Cause I'm totally impossible to say no to?'

'Uhuh. _Sure_ you are.'

'Hey, then that makes two of us,' Sonic sniggers. 'Danny's on my team next time.'

Chris stuffs his wind-chilled hands into his pockets and grins. 'So I guess this means you saved the world again.'

'Not me,' Sonic says. He turns to look in Chris's direction, and though his tone is light, his meaning is anything but. 'Us. Couldn't have done it without you, Chris.'

Chris pauses, for a moment too caught up in what Sonic just said to be able to come up with a decent response. Fortunately, Amy has one ready and prepared: 'You bet your life, Sonic the Hedgehog,' she grins, lunging and grappling him in a mammoth hug. 'You _couldn't _have done it without us. _You _really need yto say thank you to us more often.'

'Urk... Yeah if I remember to do that every time, will you stop crushing me?'

Amy groans. 'But it's _cold_! We're atop the Statue of Liberty in the middle of winter; I need something to keep me warm!'

'Gah! But does it have to be _me_?'

'Yes, yes it does.'

'...Heh. Fine. Hey, is that Helen down there?'

Chris swings around a little too fast, and is lucky that Francis is there to stop him toppling off the edge of the wedged _Phase Typhoon_. It certainly _looks_ like Helen. He can tell even from so far above. He can't see her smiling from here, but he's sure she is, and she's waving at them madly with both hands.

...Okay, maybe it's not so embarrassing being cheered for after all.

'So uh... are Cream and I gonna start flying everyone down now?' Tails suggests.

Sonic shrugs. 'Meh. Why the rush? The world isn't going anywhere, right?'

'Not until tomorrow, at least,' Chris says. What was it that Grandpa said, once? "Another day, another Doomsday Device"?

Sonic isn't there anymore, however; he's already shooting off down the wall of theStatue at a speed none of them can comprehend. They hear the sound of the cheers below increasing as Sonic arrives on ground level and they catch a glimpse of him close up.

Amy looks like she's about to protest this sudden desertion, and that's the point when Chris dumps his jacket around her shoulders, and they all go home.

* * *

"_Welcome to the golden age, of speed with grace, _

_Waiting for the angry gods, to smite our race..._

_It's not an end it's just a start, not an end it's just a start, _

_(Three, two, one...)_

_And the World's not falling apart_

_The World's not falling apart because of me..."_

* * *


	32. How To Save a Life

**These are not songfics. Let me just get that fact out of the way right now. They're short stories inspired by songs. I discovered Scribbler doing something similar with the Kingdom Hearts Videogame series, and decided I'd like to give it a shot. **

**Standard disclaimers apply. Reviews and concrit are both appreciated. **

* * *

_**32. The Fray, How To Save a Life. **_

* * *

He looks for her for...

Well. It _feels_ like forever, but it's probably a lot less time than that to everyone else. _Everything_ seems to take a long time when you're Sonic the Hedgehog. Seconds drag against each other even more reluctantly in the vacuum of space than they do on solid ground. There's no friction here, so it's a little like trying to swim.

He _hates_ it. But he keeps looking.

...It worked, didn't it? It had to have worked. Him and Shadow and one huge well of Chaos Control bursting out of them both together. You didn't get much more powerful than that, right?

Where _is_ Shadow anyway? Sonic wants to have a few choice words with him about the aching pain in his stomach that he's pretty sure has something to do with him. He can't stay out here much longer. It's late. Too late. He's taking way too long.

'_C'mon, Cosmo, where the heck _are_ ya? The others are gonna be worried about us_.'

Tails is waiting for them. Even from way out here amongst the rubble and remains of the one-time Metarex's bodies (_yuck_, not gonna thing about that), Sonic can see his outline on the prow of the Typhoon. He's waiting for him to bring Cosmo home, because Sonic _always_ brings everyone home.

So it _had_ to work. He's used Chaos Regeneration before all on his own, right? So he knows it works. He _knows_. Okay so it was only a little thing the first time round, and Chris hadn't quite been as far gone as...

_Man, shut _up. _She's not dead_, he tells himself. He _hasn't_ killed her, because he's Sonic the Hedgehog. That's not the kind of thing he does. Not really. Not if there's no way out of it afterwards. Not if...

She told them she'd come with them, didn't she? She _promised_, and promises mean something special to Cosmo. He knows, because he's seen the way she reacts whenever she thinks she's broken one. She'd make their world her new home and live with Amy Rose until she got settled and grow the biggest, thickest garden in all of Mobius and visit all of them all the time.

'_Where _are_ you? Let's go _home_, Cosmo...' _

She's _not_ gone, Sonic thinks, as he pushes into the rubble all around him, searching amongst the thousands of glimmers that make up the stars. He wonders what he'll tell her when he finds her. He doesn't do that whole "_You really freaked us out, don't ever do anything like that ever again_" thing. He leaves that kind of stuff to Cream and Amy and occasionally Chris, whenever he's feeling especially adult.

Sonic the Hedgehog isn't a quitter. That's the reason he always wins in the end. Because he keeps trying after everyone else has given up. Because he never accepts that fact that maybe -just maybe– he's going to lose the race this time. And that's why he's still out here, searching. All he sees are rocks, rocks, darkness, scrapped metal, globules of water, more rocks... There's no more strong, white light as there was earlier. No more petals drifting about in zero gravity. No—

Wait a sec...

That shimmer of light in front of him... it's _not_ a star. It's way too close and soft for that, and it's not really shining the way that most stars do: just glistening, like something damp, reflecting the surrounding light.

Oh...

Sonic's chaos-driven heart stops dead. But only for a second. Then he gathers all his nerves and remaining vestiges of energy, to reach out through the darkness and close his fingers tightly around the small, white seed.

* * *

"_Where did I go wrong? I lost a friend,_

_Somewhere alone in the bitterness,_

_And I would stay up with you all night_

_If I knew how to save a life..." _


	33. Auld Lang Syne

**These are not songfics. Let me just get that fact out of the way right now. They're short stories inspired by songs. I discovered Scribbler doing something similar with the Kingdom Hearts Videogame series, and decided I'd like to give it a shot. **

**Happy New Year everyone!!! (And btw this fic includes a joke inspired by the OzyandMillie webcomic.) **

**Standard disclaimers apply. Reviews and concrit are both appreciated. **

* * *

_**33. Auld Lang Syne, Old Folksong. **_

* * *

Sonic watched another burst of blue and pink evaporating into the night air, slowly uncovered his hands from his ears, and scratched his nose.

'...That's it?'

'Nope, there's more to come in just a few seconds,' Chris said, carefully detaching Cream's rather tight grip from his shirt. She was too busy watching the sky with the intense fascination of a young girl who has not seen nearly enough fireworks displays in her lifetime. 'This is just the beginning.'

Sonic scratched his nose again. 'I don't get it.'

'You're not supposed to, Sonic!' Amy squeaked. 'You're just supposed to _enjoy_ them. They're romantic.'

'And pretty!' Cream breathed eyes fixed quite firmly on the beauty overhead. A series of blue and yellow explosions careened across the night air like falling stars.

'Lots of stuff is pretty,' Sonic muttered, still surveying the sky thoughtlessly. He really didn't seem convinced by this whole thing. Chris found himself shaking his head, accepting Sonic's nonchalance the same way he always accepted it – the same way he had been accepting it since he was twelve years old. 'and most of it doesn't make that kina noise, too.'

Amy was not so accommodating. 'Oh, honestly, Sonic, does the world HAVE to be ending before you'll get excited about something?!'

'Well, yeah, kinda. This is an awful lot of noise to be making just for one night.' Sonic folded his arms behind his head, leaning back against rooftop. 'And a lot of light too. Don't people wanna sleep?'

'It's New Years, Sonic,' Helen giggled, shuffling in her thick coat and mittens. 'No one sleeps at new.' Years. We always stay awake.'

'Well except for when we were twelve,' Danny piped, grinning as he leant through the sky light. 'Chris lasted until... ohhh... I'd say about twenty seconds past midnight.'

'Heeey, I'll have you know I burn off a lot of energy!'

'Not as much as Sonic.'

'They're pretty I guess,' Sonic shrugged, ignoring Amy who had decided to use him as a pillow. 'I mean why make so much noise to bring in the New Year anyway? Who came up with that idea?'

'I'm not sure exactly,' Chris smiled faintly. 'I guess it's sort of like we're welcoming in the new season and saying goodbye to the old one. Like when I was younger and we watched the first sunrise, remember?'

'Why didn't we do that this year?' sonic asked, though he obviously wasn't complaining about the fact – they weren't on a boat. That was good enough for him.

'Dad has the yacht.' Chris said, covering his ears as another series of Catherine-wheel rocket combinations sputtered across the dark sky.

The rocket was bigger than any of the other fireworks that had come so far. It made almost as much noise in its rising as the ultimate explosion did – a trail of solid blue light careening into the sky for what looked like miles before exploding with an echo to rival any sonic boom. There was a chorus of "oooh's"! And "ahhhs" from all around the Thorndyke household.

'Okay now _that_ one was cool.' Sonic grinned, suddenly looking a lot more interested. 'Looked just like me!'

'Knew you'd like it,' Chris grinned. Settling back and resigning himself to the fact that he was going to have Cream quite firmly attached to him for the next half an hour at least.

Somewhere in the background, the adults (a couple of whom Chris was pretty sure had had too much to drink already) started warbling out the tune of "Auld Lang Syne", and Cream was joining in without actually knowing the real words- merely happy with humming along to the rhythm.

* * *

For auld lang syne, my dear,  
For auld lang syne,  
We'll tak a cup of kindness yet,  
For auld lang syne!


	34. Adiemus

**These are not songfics. Let me just get that fact out of the way right now. They're short stories **_**inspired**_** by songs. I discovered Scribbler doing something similar with the Kingdom Hearts Videogame series, and decided I'd like to give it a shot. **

**I have a Cosmo/Knuckles shipper buried somewhere deep inside of me, that I let out on rare occasions. If the guy wasn't like, eight years older than her, well, maybe... XD **

**Standard disclaimers apply. Reviews and concrit are both appreciated. **

* * *

_**34. Enya, Adiemus. **_

* * *

The days which are the most difficult for her are the ones which remind her of home.

Cosmo has never seen Greengate –the planet of the Seedrian's birth. She was born long after the planet was abandoned. But still, there is water and sugar in her veins and the sun's warmth strengthens her when it touches her face. There are... places which remind her of Greengate without her ever having actually been there. Places of warm light and gentle breezes. Places where technology meshes perfectly with a natural environment.

She feels this way on their latest planet – a distant and tiny orb circling a red sun. She stands on the bridge of the _Blue Typhoon_ where it crouches like a bird of prey atop a series of hills, and watches the magnificent world turning below her, wishing so badly that she could show her sisters.

Usually, Knuckles shows up in these moments. They sit together in the sunlight or the rain, or whatever strange environmental situation the Blue Typhoon is currently stuck in the middle of.

Knuckles will tell her stories.

She is amazed, sometimes, by how similar their tales of childhood are. They are creatures who have never known the place from which they originate. Children growing up without their fathers, with only the stories of their history to sustain their desire to know more about their pasts.

Knuckles' stories are always entertaining. And it is rare to see him so animated and excited by... well, anything, really. His stories are always a lot more... violent than Cosmo's tales of her own people. Knuckles tells her tales of great beasts suppressed by Echidnan forces. The story of two warriors battling for control of Chaos ('_who then told them _both_ to get lost_!'), and as he tells these stories, he gestures and waves his hands, like a true storyteller wrapped up in his tale, enamoured by the glory of the past. Sometimes, he can even make Cosmo laughs.

Her favourite tale is the story of Chaos. Of the little girl who tried to hold back the forces of war –and failed. Only to then go on to succeed where all others had fallen, and to bring peace to an Angry Chaos creature's heart. Cosmo (betraying her young age, no doubt) has asked him to tell that story many times, and Knuckles (betraying _his_ age too, perhaps) usually obliges.

She commented once that it was strange Knuckles could have so many stories when he didn't know his own origins. All he knows, he tells her, are what the ancient scriptures taught him. That's how he knows of the ancient battles with Chaos, and the history of the Emeralds. He also tells her of a beautiful Echidnan princess who defied time itself to come to them and help them save the world once again from an enraged chaos: "_And I was actually _in_ that story too, you know. Heh. Kinda funny, being part of history like that."_

Cosmo has never asked whether the Echidnan Princess and the Bride of Chaos are the same person, but... she suspects.

Cosmo's species is one that has always been fairly resigned when it comes to their destiny. In the end, they do not die, but become a different form of life. They grow branches and firm roots and extend into the skies. They become trees. That is the nature of her people and there is no sense in denying it. It is a strange kind of death, but it is one that Cosmo has always expected: one she has never quite been able to explain to any of her new flesh and blood friends.

Her own stories aren't usually as entertaining as Knuckles. She has no tales of huge battles or princesses – just tales about her family and friends. The stories of the cherry blossom festivals, and the season of light and the tale of the 1000 year old Ginkgo tree. Knuckles always listens to her. Somehow, in those moments, Cosmo finds it very hard to equate him with the sarcastic, gruff person who always complains about their treatment of the Master Emerald, and hates waiting around between battles. Knuckles feels like an altogether different person in these moments.

'...They will come,' Knuckles says one day at the end of one of her stories. He says it almost quietly enough for her not to hear him, and gazes up into the red-yellow sky of this world's sunset. Cosmo does not ask him to explain. 'One day, both our worlds and kinds will be whole again. Our sacrifice will make it so, Cosmo, you can be sure of that.'

Cosmo doesn't understand exactly what he means (she isn't sure that Knuckles understands himself), but she clings to the vision he offers her, the same way she clings to the hope that Sonic and the crew of the _Blue Typhoon_ represent. She never imagines that Knuckles' vision would one day involve her, too.

Cosmo dies several months later, in an explosion of light not too unlike the ones in the stories Knuckles told her. Explosions of chaos and beauty and destruction. Knuckles returns home with the crew of the _Blue Typoon_. He lives for many years, guarding the Master Emerald in (mostly) peace and tranquillity, with only the occasional plot for world domination by Eggman to interrupt his quiet. He evolves, his powers grow, and one day, at a great age, Knuckles vanishes from this world and disappears to that place where masters of Chaos go when they die.

The only thing he ever truly regrets, is teaching Cosmo that awful lie about the glory of sacrifice.

* * *

"_Ariadiamus late ariadiamus da  
ari a natus late adua  
A-ra-va-re tu-e va-te  
a-ra-va-re tu-e va-te." _

* * *

**NB: "Adiemus", literally translated, means 'we will draw near'. Curiously enough, the creator of the album, Karl Jenkins, was unaware of the word's meaning. He believed it to be an invented word of his own imagination.**


	35. Headlock

**These are not songfics. Let me just get that fact out of the way right now. They're short stories **_**inspired**_** by songs. I discovered Scribbler doing something similar with the Kingdom Hearts Videogame series, and decided I'd like to give it a shot. **

**Standard disclaimers apply. Reviews and concrit are both appreciated. **

* * *

_**35. Headlock, Imogen Heap.**_

* * *

The boy's grip is tight upon the steel edges of a control panel, and Shadow wonders briefly what he's thinking and whether or not it matters.

It doesn't.

It's still... strange; to have the boy sitting so close to him after all the times Shadow has held his life in his own, chaos-conducting hands.

What Shadow doesn't ask, however, Cosmo does, and Chris's hands snap away from the control panel at the sound of her voice, his fingers clenching and unclenching in a manner which doesn't suit a twelve year old. Not that he's a twelve year old anymore. Not really.

Shadow has exceptional hearing. Even from right across the room, he's close enough to hear every word the flower girl is saying and every word that Chris is saying back. He's close enough to understand what it is they're talking about. But he doesn't hear either of them, because he chooses not to. Nothing Cosmo could possibly say to anyone would change how Shadow feels about her. She is... a traitor. Deliberate or not. He has no idea what possesses them to communicate so openly with a girl who's broadcasting every word they say on subspace, to the last people they want to hear. It doesn't make any _sense_...

Cosmo laughs as something Chris is saying. Quietly and softly –barely a laugh at all, really, but Chris seems to think that it's some kind of amazing victory, because he punches the air and rubs the top of her head with his free hand. Cosmo was frowning intensely when she went over to him, but as she walks away she's almost smiling, though she hurries past Shadow with a (frankly understandable) quick pace. She doesn't want to be near him.

Chris continues working silently until Shadow approaches him.

'Why do you tell her these things?' He doesn't have to explain the question. Chris knows exactly what he's talking about. _Why trust that creature? Why hold her hand through all her fears and trepidations, when she's only going to aid those who want to kill us all? _Chris stops whatever he's doing to look in Shadow's direction and Shadow finds himself inwardly wincing at a half-recalled memory. Everything he remembers about Maria makes him wish he could forget again. Chris is... not exactly a comfortable reminder.

Shadow wonders for the umpteenth time what the hell he's doing here.

'I guess... it's like I said to you last time,' the boy says, and barely the slightest tremble in his voice betrays what he's really feeling. 'You can't blame people alive today for things that happened years ago. _Cosmo_ never betrayed her people. She didn't start all of this.'

'She has you all wrapped around her little finger,' Shadow mutters, and it takes him a few minutes to remember exactly where he first heard that phrase: it had been back on board the ARK, fifty short years ago. With a little girl gazing up at her grandfather with pleading eyes, and him giving in to her every desire. _'Can he stay with me, Grandpa? Please, please, pleeeease! I want to play with him!' _

Chris turns back to his keyboard. He's tense enough that Shadow can see the whites of his knuckles and the hairs standing up on the back of his neck. 'I wouldn't say that at all... But I like her. She's our friend.'

'So you've always insisted.' Shadow says. It's neither his place (nor his inclination) to comment on such things as personal interaction. 'But it's foolish to let her wander around unchecked.'

'Why?'

Shadow blinks at him. Wasn't this kid supposed to be one of the intelligent ones in this ridiculous little star trek? And yet Chris really doesn't seem to know what Shadow means. 'Obviously because she poses a _threat_. She's a spy, willing or not. The Metarex are in her brain twenty-four seven, seeing everything that she sees, and you're asking me _why_?'

Chris sighs, leaning back in his chair. 'I'm starting to see why you never want to be around us, Shadow. Your communication skills leave a lot to be desired. _Look_ at her. She's _eight years old_.'

'So is Tails. That didn't stop him building a highly destructive Chaos weapon.'

'Well, if it makes you feel any better, I don't see Cosmo tinkering with Tails's tool box,' Chris says, and the dry sarcasm of his tone doesn't suit a twelve year old either. Shadow remembers those white hands gripping the metal frames of the ARK's windows, gazing down at a distant earth. He remembers the sickening crunch of bone and muscle against a steel wall. Remembers –and blocks out the memory. 'I really don't think you understand her.'

Chris may have an uncanny sense for people's true intentions. But he's dead wrong about Cosmo.

It is not simply his gained knowledge that tells Shadow this. There is something instinctively _wrong_ with that creature. Wrong in the same way that something had been wrong with Maria: she is very much aware of it, and yet she hides it with lightness and kindness and a delicate touch. Maria had been brighter than Cosmo, though. Stronger and bolder and maybe a little bit more likely to take advantage of the fact that everyone found her adorable. He remembers all of this now... and rather wishes that he didn't.

Innocent as she may seem, Cosmo's true purpose cannot be hidden from Shadow's senses anymore than Chris's true age or Sonic's inner power can be. The truth about them is plainly visible in every move they make.

Shadow snorts. 'It's you who doesn't understand, Chris. That creature will bring nothing but destruction and disaster.'

There is silence for a moment, broken by the distant sound of the Blue Typhoon's engines, drumming away into subspace. Then Chris spoke again: 'I remember when people said the same thing about you.'

Shadow can't think of anything to say to this, and. Chris's hands slowly unclench from their fists, and he begins tapping away at the control panel again.

* * *

"_Distant flickering, greener scenery_

_This weather's bringing it all back again_

_Great adventures, faces in condensation_

_I'm going outside andf take it all in..._

_You say "too late to stop, got your heart in a headlock_

_I don't believe any of it_

_You say too late to start with your heart in a headlock_

_You know you're better than this."_


	36. Kimi ga Yume Mita Mira

**

* * *

**

These are not songfics. Let me just get that fact out of the way right now. They're short stories inspired by songs. I discovered Scribbler doing something similar with the Kingdom Hearts Videogame series, and decided I'd like to give it a shot.

**The title of this chapter translates as "****The Future You Dreamed Of, the Future I Dreamed Of"****. It's Wormmon's song from the Digimon Japanese "Best Partner" series and is perhaps the cutest thing I have ever heard in my life. Well, okay. Second cutest. Behind that song in **_**Dumbo**_**… It's also a song that very much sounds like it suits Cosmo. This chapter is sort of technically a sequel to chapter 34. Technically. And yes, my Knuckles-Cosmo shipper is on the loose again. **

**Standard disclaimers apply. Reviews and concrit are both appreciated. **

* * *

_**36. Takahashi Naozumi, Kimi ga Yume Mita Mira, Boku ga Yume Mita Mirai**_

* * *

There's a forest growing around the Master Emerald.

Knuckles can't even try to explain this. Apparently the Planet Egg returned to them having forgotten every aspect of its world's original geography and is making everything up from scratch. At first, nothing much occurred, except that the grass started to grow again, the trees stopped looking as if they'd been stripped bare for winter, and the population of the planet had breathed a collective sigh of relief.

On the first day of the second week after their return from space, the spring flowers began sprouting. The daffodils were coming up six months late, but that's only to be expected. He remembers how Cosmo had struggled to get hold of whatever pretty, alien plant she could on every planet they visited, to use as decorations for the party she was not-so-secretly-planning. There had been no daffodils, she told him disappointedly afterwards. There really ought to have been. One of her sisters had been a daffodil...

Knuckles had decided it better not to ask. Now he rather wishes that he had. Because Cosmo so rarely volunteered information, that it's only now, three months too late, that Knuckles realises how significant the statement "Galaxina says that gardening in great therapy" really is.

On the second morning, Knuckles awakens to find that there are berry bushes where there once was grassland, darker patches of green littering an otherwise flat horizon, all the way to the mountains. He tried to explain his concerns to Sonic, but the only thing he seemed to care about was the fact that the berries weren't _ripe_ yet.

Some people had no sense of prioritization.

On the third day, there is woodland. It surrounds the temple with a soft, green shade, honeysuckle grows across rocks and tree roots, and wind rustles between branches that were definitely _not_ there a day earlier. The Chaotic visit and enjoy the shade, but curse the unexpected increase in pollen.

Since when did crocodiles get hay fever anyway?

Quite frankly, it's getting a bit ridiculous. Though Cream _does_ appear to be having an absolute field day. She's making flower crowns again. Lots of them. For everyone she knows, Sonic, Amy, Tails, Knuckles, Espio, Cheese, Rouge... Hell, at this rate, Knuckles figures she's going to start giving them to Eggman's hence-robots.

On the fourth day, Tails comes to visit, and explains that the rest of the world is undergoing an equally bizarre transformation. Swamps are bubbling in the middle of what used to be parking lots. When Tails arrives he trips regularly over sprawling vines. The Temple is surrounded by creepers.

'Nature's getting its own back, that's what I think, Knuckles,' he says, brushing creepers away from his ears. They sit together in the cool shade of the new forest trees gathered around them, the glow of the Master Emerald at their backs and the calls of Flickie birds in the air. If Knuckles didn't know better, he'd think the vines themselves were reaching out to them. 'If I were the planet egg right now, I'd want to grow and grow and never stop. It must be good. To be back home, I mean.'

'I'm not sure the planet egg is capable of having an opinion,' Knuckles mutters tersely in response.

'Well, sure it is. How else could it make all the flowers and trees grow?'

'Humph,' Knuckles remains convinced. People who evolved from flowers and end up turning into trees are one thing; sentient planet eggs are quite another, 'Are you trying to suggest that the planet egg is sentient?'

'Why not?'

'Because it obviously has no sense of _convenience_.' Knuckles mutters. 'There are creepers all over my usual seating spot, there's pollen all over my quills and if Cream shows up with _another_ flower crown I may just have to... raise my voice to her.'

Tails sniggers. 'I don't think it'll be like this for long, Knuckles. This is just the planet making up for a few lost months of growth. I'm sure the ecosystem will balance out eventually and all of these creepers and plants and things will start to die down again.'

'And the forest?'

'Well... that you might be stuck with. I don't think these trees will disappear.' Tails chuckles, presumably at the look on Knuckles face. 'Oh come on, Knuckles, we've got a supersonic hedgehog on speed dial. I don't think a living planet egg is that much harder to believe, do you?'

Knuckles doesn't answer.

'There really ought to be peonies too, don't you think?' Tails says eventually, petting the heads of a honeysuckle. That's what _she_ was. Well, what she was descended from, anyway. A _Paeoniaceae_, to be exact.'

'Really.'

'Mmhm. I looked it up. Amy has so many books on growing plants, it's ridiculous.'

There's a new rule that they all have amongst each other –when Tails visits, you don'tever, under any circumstances, _mention the flower pot_. But Knuckles mentions it anyway. Partly because he knows he can get away with it and partly because...

Well, because he wants to know the answer. 'So, how did it grow?'

Tails doesn't answer for a few moments. The silence is all the answer Knuckles needs, really. He hadn't been aware of the rise in his heart, but he feels it sinking again very acutely. It's an awkwardly familiar feeling.

'It's a peony.' Tails says eventually. 'The seed she left, it... it grew into a peony.'

'Oh. Just...?'

'Just a normal one,' Tails shrugs, pointedly not looking in Knuckles direction. 'We're e gonna plant it in Amy's garden next summer, when it's a little stronger. It's... it's really pretty, though. And there are no thorns at all.'

'I'm not surprised.' Knuckles says, and realises to his surprise that there _are_ no thorns here at all. Not a single spiny cactus or a single sharp-pronged thistle. 'Tails, I'm—'

'It's okay,' Tails shrugs, and something in his eyes, while sad, tells Knuckles that it really is. 'I guess I shouldn't have gotten my hopes up, it's just... I kind of couldn't help it.'

None of them could, Knuckles realises. Tails had wanted so badly for that flower to grow into Cosmo. Knuckles learned a long time ago that life quite simply wasn't that fair.

Knuckles is an echidna. Echidnas knew little about fair, even when they numbered in the millions. Life is tough; battle is commonplace, and people die and don't grow back afterwards. He is used to hard stone ground for a pillow and the energy of a storm overhead, and that's just the way he likes things. Cosmo was built for softer things like gardening and gentle rain and tea parties with Cream. Cosmo could make an _explosion _lookgentle_. _

Cosmo was no weakling, however easy it might have been to mistake her for one. Cosmo could fight when she had to. But that wasn't the kind of world she was made for. She _photosynthesised_ for crying out loud. The mere fact that a creature like Cosmo spent her entire childhood cooped up in a world made of metal and artificial lightning is almost deplorable. But she had her family. Her mother and her friends who grew from seeds and had daffodils for hair.

This world; this place of forests and trees and disturbingly self-aware seeming creepers... this is the kind of world that Cosmo should've grown up in.

Knuckles, however, would very much like his hard, stone seating place back.

Tails lies back on the temple steps (he's one of few people who's allowed to do that) and folds his arms behind his head. 'It'll be a shame when winter comes. It'll seem really dull around here without all of the greenery.'

Knuckles, as much as he wants his stone seat back, silently agrees.

And then the fifth day comes.

* * *

Knuckles wakes up one morning to see nothing but red.

This worries him, at first, until it dawns on him that the redness smells of roses and that there is pollen tickling his face. When he sits up there are petals everywhere, flickering across the glade. It takes several seconds for Knuckles to wake up enough to walk down the temple steps. Several seconds longer to work out exactly what all of these petals are coming from.

Peonies.

Peonies everywhere, hundreds of them, climbing the steps of the temple in ways that he's fairly sure that kind of flower isn't supposed to grow. It seems that the laws of physics have been completely averted so that they can grow sideways and upside down and spread their petals over _everything_.

Knuckles sits down on the temple steps and laughs until his stomach hurts.

It seems like Cosmo has gotten her message across

* * *

_Oboeteru? deatta hi _

_Me wo tojireba soko ni _

_Afureru namida hitoribotchi de _

_Kizu tsuita mayotta michi _

_Moshimo yukusaki miezu _

_Kokoro ga korondara _

_Yakusoku suru yo sagashite kuru yo _

_Egao kureru yuuki _

x

_Do you remember? The day we met _

_If I close my eyes, there you are _

_Tears flowing, all alone _

_Hurt and lost _

_Even if you can't see where you're going _

_Even if your heart stumbles _

_I promise you, I'll search for you _

_Your courage makes me smile _


	37. Wrong One Loves You

**I got this song from RyokoDarkwing. It... Actually looks like a Celine Dion song that I actually **_**like**_**. I decided to mess with it a bit. This fic isn't really a romantic one. **

**This one actually requires a little continuity, since its set in the same storyline as my other, much bigger fanfiction **_**Chaos Mythologies**_**. If you don't want to read that, then just imagine that this fanfiction takes place in some obscure, future, never-made-episode in which sonic and the others are back on earth and the battles have started all over again. **

* * *

_**37. Celine Dion, Wrong One Loves You Right**_

* * *

Christopher Thorndyke isn't stupid.

He _is_ a teenager, which means he has the right to a little... exaggeration, now and then. But exaggerating things is very different to misunderstanding them. And Chris is sure he isn't misunderstanding the looks that Sonic gets whenever he blows a Bot'nik to pieces in a blur of Sonic speed, or the expressions on random members of the public as Knuckles gruffly but politely apologises for throwing cars about in his attempts to get at Eggman.

Confusion, awe... and sometimes, if you watch people hard enough, fear.

He supposes things were different when he was a kid; the first time Sonic had been in this world; before the Neorex and the evils that are draining his planet of colour. Or maybe he was _just_ seeing things differently. The child-Chris viewed the world through blue coloured glasses, and even what he did see; he only did so in terms of his own feelings. Which is a very, very human behaviour, but still a selfish one.

There's another thing that Christopher Thorndyke knows very well. He was a selfish child who was given everything he ever needed and never the one thing he wanted more than anything. As an adult, he is anything but.

But... no. It didn't all happen after he grew up, did it? He remembers being twelve years old standing on the pier and trying to understand just why the president had been talking to his grandfather like the government was plotting to lock his best friend in a cage somewhere.

Sometimes he dreams about all the ways in which things could wrong. Not wrong in the way they have so many times before. Not wrong in the way that Eggman makes things, or the way they are when the Master Emerald shatters into pieces, or even when the Metarex are tearing apart the centre of the galaxy. Wrong in the way that only humans can be.

He has the feeling that if his life were a comic book, he would've stopped reading because the plot had jumped the shark and gotten too ridiculous to believe. But that doesn't mean the things that worry him aren't innately, potentially real.

Chris isn't stupid. He knows that Sonic's abilities and nature and very _appearance_ frighten people more than they would care to admit on television. He knows that he's dreading the day Cream finds out that sometimes, people aren't _always_ coming over and staring because they want to play with her. He knows from reading his Grandfather's encrypted-but-not-encrypted-enough-probably-on-purpose files the huge number of plans and contingencies that the government has just in case Sonic turns out to be on some other governments side.

Chris would like to charge into a white house official office and yell at somebody about how none of that is true; that Sonic doesn't care about any of that stuff, and how the only dangerous thing around here is the people who think of Sonic like he's some kind of weapon that needs to be activated and deactivated at will.

Except that...

Well.

Shadow told him about what happened, after he passed out on Black Narcissus's base. After the blood, the sealed container and the sight of Sonic's face disappearing as the floor rose up around them. Of Cosmo's frightened frustration.

He never actually saw what Sonic did. But he knows how being around him felt afterwards: strange and distorted enough around him for Chris not to immediately dismiss what Shadow told him as nonsense.

Besides it's not like it takes a genius to work out what Sonic is capable of. The guy can _outrun a NASA rocket engine_ for crying out loud. And that's all he really wants to do. All he's ever wanted to do. Outrun everyone and everything. Chris won't pretend to understand the how's and why's of that anymore now than he did when he was just a kid.

It's human nature to feel jealous of what someone else can do, and scared of how they can do it. Perfectly understandably to be confused because one day there was only earth and a single bipedal major species and nothing more than that, and the _next_ there were the kind of creatures you normally found on sale in the supermarket or in Pet Stores, holding conversations and fighting evil geniuses in the street.

Chris knows all of those feelings, because he's felt them himself. Because sometimes he still does, even if for different reasons. He's never been afraid of Sonic, but unlike when he was twelve, now there's a small part of him which understands why other people _are_. Sonic can manipulate Chaos on a fundamental level, (which in scientific terms is rather like a human being able to control liquid plasma and C4 at the same time). Sonic can outrun speeding missiles. Sonic can smash somebody to insignificant little shreds just by hitting them at a high enough speed...

And he uses these abilities to take a twelve year old boy for one last run around the planet. He uses them to collect flowers from the other side of a planet because he knows how much a little girl will like them. He uses them to go for races with speed obsessed human beings, and to help Ella tidy up the kitchen at ridiculous speeds.

Most of the people in town, however much sonic of televised and idolised and feared, don't get to see that part of him. Chris does. Chris sees the person sonic is when he's not kicking Eggman's ass.

And the thing is, Chris can't think of any better person to possess those abilities than Sonic the Hedgehog.

* * *

_I'm getting tired, of hearing that  
You're dangerous, but they won't stop  
Until I leave, they won't believe  
That being with you won't break my heart  
So worried bout, the road ahead  
They can't see that, you're my best friend  
They're never gonna take me away from you  
There's nothing they can do_


	38. Where Do I Go from Here?

**There are advantages to the perspective of childhood. Namely, everything seems a whole lot simpler. Why's and How's don't matter so much. The way things are can be traced back to relatively simple explanations, such as "the sky is blue because green was already taken by the grass", or "snow is cold because angels left the freezer door open" (both explanations I heard myself as a child. **

**For someone who's been through everything from imprisonment, to being sucked to another world, to getting wrapped up in a full scale war... Eventually, Cream will grow up, and won't have that childish simplicity to hide behind anymore.**

* * *

_**38. Pocahontas Soundtrack, Where Do I Go from Here?**_

* * *

Cream makes her last flower crown the day after her twelfth birthday.

She wants to use flowers from her own garden, even though there are usually nicer ones growing in Amy's, because it seems appropriate. The problem being, of course, that Cream was born in _January_. There aren't many flowers growing _anywhere_ right now. It snowed a few days ago, and even though most of it has melted, you can still see your breath in little puffs of ice. There's a sliver of ice coating the pond, and a half melted snowhog, with the twig-spines falling out of its back and half of its carrot nose missing.

The carrot was probably eaten by a Chao. She'll have a word with Cheese about it later. That is, if she can understand what he's saying today. It's getting harder to, lately, because understanding Chao is something only small children can do, and Cream...

Well. Cream isn't all that small anymore.

A few people walk past as she wanders. They smile at her and say hello politely, and Cream says hello politely back, but nobody asks what she's doing, even though it must look silly: a girl like her wandering around a garden in a blue dress and woolly scarf. But then, the general consensus in their village is that the little rabbit girl is... Well... Not entirely right in the head.

For that matter, neither is the pink hedgehog that lives next door to her; or the fox with two tails who talks to his machinery, or Sonic (everyone remembers _his_ name). In fact, whenever other people reference their little group, it's usually with aside glances and uneasy words. They aren't _cruel_ words. Not at all. They're just... confused.

Cream can't say she blames them. She supposes she _can_ be peculiar, but that's only to be expected, because she's one of the people who chooses **not** to conveniently forget about events she doesn't understand. Most people around here, Cream has noticed, hardly remember what it was like to be sucked into another world, even though you'd think something like that was pretty memorable. Most people try not to talk about when the Metarex came, or the day the sky turned into kaleidoscopic. People don't like to remember things which confuse them, so they try to act as if they never happened in the first place.

Cream supposes it's the same thing with her and her friends. What was it that Tails had called it? Oh yes, that's it: "A Weirdness Censor".

Cream the Rabbit is twelve years old. She can do the junior crossword without needing a dictionary, fly a plane, shoot a plasma cannon, and sometimes, she wakes up in the middle of the night crying because of bad dreams that she can't remember afterwards (though she has a pretty good idea what they were about). She once lived in another world, fought ghosts, battled robots, and helped to stop a war.

She also saw _how_ the war ended. All the people on her world had seen back then was a bunch of shooting stars and lights. Cream had actually _been _there. Those few distant stars racing through the sky had been the Metarex, a glowing seed, Cosmo, and Sonic and Shadow rising into the sky and becoming brighter than any star...

Cream chooses to remember. Forgetting would be to forget what Cosmo did for them.

She still makes better flower crowns than she does anything else. Or she _could_ if there were any flowers about, but one thing that's still the same now as it was when she was six years old is that the weather is never convenient. When you want to go out to play, it rains. When you want to go out and make some symbolic reference to your childhood, the ground is too hard and cold for anything to grow. It's the same difference.

So Cream sighs in irritation and sits down by the pond. She can see her reflection in the ice. People keep telling her how different she looks now. She's Momma's Big Girl and Amy's Not-So-Little-Sister. Every time Vector calls he recounts a story about when Cream was "just about up to here on my kneecaps" and Tails stutters around her more than he used to. Cream knows why, because she's had the sleepovers with Amy, complete with games of Truth of Dare, and the occasional attempt at world domination by Eggman...

And sometimes, Cream realises, it all feels a little silly.

The way her childhood way, that is. Not that her childhood is _over_ yet, but it feels like a very long time has passed since she was in the human world. She hasn't been into space since they came back from fighting the Metarex. She went three years without sitting in a cockpit, and yet, when she did, how to steer had just come back to her. It was like riding a bike, Tails said; you never really forgot.

And that's just as well, because Cream sometimes feels that if she didn't have the photographs and the abilities and the beautiful Peony Rose, Cream doesn't know if she could believe those four years had really happened and she hadn't just dreamed them.

She has seen more than anyone could possibly imagine seeing. She's been to war. She watched the heavens exploding. She nearly died because a robot who used to be her friend went crazy and started trying to kill everyone. And she doesn't want to think about how long she's been away from earth, because now she's old enough to understand the definition of "Time Paradox". The thought of Chris and Helen and Ella growing old and grey in what, to Cream, has only been a few years is...

Cream doesn't want to think about it. She doesn't want to think about the fact that some of them might not be alive anymore, and have no idea that it was her twelfth birthday yesterday. In that sense, Cream supposes, she's just like everybody else. Remembering things which at their core were often bad or strange or disturbing takes a lot of effort, and sometimes doesn't seem worth it.

Cream has difficulty working out what she's supposed to do with herself. The world wasn't made for people like her, who can watch people dying, make flower crowns and talk about visiting other worlds. Sometimes it's hard to be content with who you are and what you have, no matter how nice what you have is, or how much you went through so you could keep it.

Or maybe, Cream thinks, that's just another symptom of growing up: not knowing who you are.

She looks at her reflection, and tries very hard to see the changes everyone is talking about. But the only thing Cream can see is the tuft of fur which likes to hang over her forehead. She might be a little taller, but asides from that, most of Cream's changes took place on the inside.

She's so wrapped up in the icy reflection, that she doesn't notice Sonic's arrival until he's gone again. Which isn't unusual. Often, the only indication you get that Sonic is here is the whooshing sound he makes as he shoots by.

And whatever he leaves behind.

What Sonic has left behind this time, is a basket, sitting on the doorstep. A very _full_ basket. Cream leaves the pond, brushing flecks of ice away from her thin dress and walks back to the step. The basket is filled so full with snowdrops, that they're pouring over the edges, and some have gotten battered by the high speed at which Sonic travels. There's a note tucked in between them

_**To Cream,**_

_**Better late than never right?**_

_**Happy 12**__**th**__** Birthday.**_

_**S.**_

The note looks as if it was scribbled very quickly, but then, that's the way that Sonic does everything. And Cream smiles as she sits down on the step, thinking that a crown of snowdrops will be as nice as anything, and begins to carefully thread the thin, green stems together.

* * *

_My world has changed, and so have I._  
_I'__ve learned to choose and __even__ learned to say goodbye,_  
_The path ahead so hard to see, it winds and bends, _

_But where it ends all depends on only me._  
_In my heart I don't feel __part of so much I've known._  
_Now it feels it's time to start a new life on my own. _

_But where do I go from here?  
So many voices ringing in my ears.  
Which is the voice I was meant to hear?  
How will I know, where do I go from here?_

* * *


	39. Que Que Natura

**As you can probably tell, I got a little tired of drawing angst from the same canon plot point (I.e. Cosmo's death) so I... avoided her for this fic, even though it might seem the obvious choice. I love that girl, seriously, but there are only so many times one can rehash the same source of mental anxiety. Besides, I'm on a Cream kick. ;) And a Pocahontas kick too, for that matter. **

* * *

_**39. Pocahontas Soundtrack, Que Que Natura (You Will Understand)**_

* * *

Sonic took a deep breath, scratched behind his ear, thought about it, and then said what was possibly the most un-Sonic like statement imaginable. 'I don't get it.'

Because normally, such things don't matter to Sonic. Things are the way they are, and that's all there is to it. Now that he's found something that he genuinely wants to question, he's not entirely sure how to go about it.

Cream kicked her feet against the wing of the Tornado. 'I don't think you're really supposed to, Sonic, you're just supposed to enjoy it.'

Tails chuckles, messing around with something clicky inside of the Tornado. Cream has no idea just what he's doing. All she knows is that the Tornado started making worrying, sputtering noises when they were in the air, and Tails decided to land them some place safe so they could get it repaired.

He had landed them in a beautiful place. Or at least, it was beautiful at night, when the lights dimmed, and the aurora began threading its green and pink lights across the sky, like a curtain or a moving tide. For as far as they can see, there is green and pink where there should be only darkness and stars.

'But it's not like it really expects us to be here, right?' Sonic asks, seeming confused. 'It's not putting on a show or anything. So why does it even happen?'

'Like Cream says, Sonic, you're not supposed to know,' Tails laughs. 'If we understood why nature does every little thing it does then we'd be geniuses. We're certainly not that.'

'You are a genius,' Sonic insists.

'Well... not like _that_.'

Sonic folds his arms behind his head and leans back on the X Tornado's wing. Cream would've known he was doing this even if she hadn't looked. It's what Sonic does whenever he accepts they're not going anywhere for a while. And they probably aren't. The air is cold and Cream pulls her jacket tighter around herself, watching her breath misting up in front of her eyes. The aurora glistens on, without a care for cold or warmth. It's like the earth is wrapping itself in a multicoloured sheath, and going out to meet the universe dressed up. Cream wonders whether you can see the aurora from space...

She wishes she had brought Cheese with her. Cheese would've loved to see this.

'If you really want an explanation, Sonic,' Tails says, rifling through his toolbox. 'Then auroras are really caused by atmospheric pressure. Those bands of light are made by charged solar particles following the earth's magnetic lines of force…'

'What's that when it's not blowing my brain out?'

Tails opens his mouth... then hesitates. 'Um… I don't really know. I read that in a book somewhere.'

Books, Cream thought, were very useful and interesting things; but sometimes, they really didn't explain _anything_ that they claimed to.

'Magic?' she suggests, hopefully.

Tails grins. The lights of the aurora are turning the white parts of his face pink and making his eyes sparkle. 'Heh. Yeah, I guess maybe that's what magic is, really, Cream. Just stuff we haven't explained yet.'

Cream thinks that this sounds very wise.

'I think it's the way heaven must look,' she says, softly, and surprises herself, because she's never been all that certain whether she believes in such things. Now that she's twelve years old, she knows she's supposed to be big and mature and question all of these things. 'Or a painting. Helen said to me once that artists paint things that you can't see in real life, because that's the only way to understand them. It's like the universe is talking to us.'

Sonic wrinkles his nose. 'Well I wish it'd talk in a language I understand.'

'Oh, Sonic, just _look_ at it,' Cream says, and finds herself sounding more serious than she meant to.

Sonic does. Probably because he's humouring her, but after a few moments, he sits upright and stares quite firmly into the bands of green and pink and blue drifting across the night air. 'It is kinda pretty, isn't it?'

And for a while, Sonic is silent. There is no sound except for Tails tinkering with the Tornado's engine.

When sonic does eventually speak again, it's in a whisper. 'Hey, Cream?' Think your magical universe-painting can grant wishes ? Cause I've got one I wanna share with it.'

Cream smiles and leans back, folding her arms behind her head in a perfect imitation of Sonic. 'I'm sure it can,' she says, and doesn't feel the slightest bit embarrassed, because really, everybody needs a little magic in their life, whether that magic is really just charged solar particles flowing the earth's magnetic force or not. 'What do you want to wish about?'

'Can't tell ya that, Creamy,' Sonic smiles. 'If I do, then it won't come true.'

* * *

_Que que natura, you will understand,_

_Listen with your heart, you will understand_

_Let it wash around you like a wave upon the sand,_

_Que que natura you will understand. _


	40. Do I Make You Proud?

**I'm graduating in a couple of weeks. **

**That really says it all for this particular fanfiction, I think.

* * *

**

_**40. Taylor Hicks, Do I Make You Proud?

* * *

**_

If I could confess to a single regret over the last eighteen years? It would be missing my son grow up.

Oh, of course he was wonderfully looked after –we have our employees to thank for that. Frankly I'm amazed that Ella has never had children of her own– but... there are some things that you simply can't replace. A mother is one of them. When my own mother was alive, I don't think she missed out on a single day my my young life... Not that this was _always_ a good thing. I missed his _first word_, can you believe that? Missing something so significant for the sake of a few_retakes_... and ones that the studio decided not _use_, at that. And then there were all the magazine interviews, the expensive dinners, the premiers, the autograph signings...

He became lost, somewhere in the middle of it all... It must sound so very harsh to you; a woman trying to fit calling her son into a schedule between a ten am interview with _Glam_ Magazine and a ten fifteen meeting with the... The President of Germany or _whoever_ it was that time around.

Yes, it is, isn't it? But you asked me, and I answered honestly. I have a personal rule, you see: _Always_ be honest with your public. Especially during interviews. If they're going to cook up some dirt on you anyway... Well, you might as well make sure that you don't make it any easier for them, mightn't you?

Things changed some time about when he turned thirteen... Yes, you probably remember that, it was all over the news, if I recall. Of course, in the end it was a little... advice from his grandfather that finally helped us track him down. It was such a relief, you can't believe...

It seemed so very _important_ back then... all the meetings and the interviews seemed so essential. And then everything changed so much so quickly. You start to realise exactly what's important to you and what isn't. It was too late for... so many things by then.

Nervous? But of course I'm nervous, dear. Who wouldn't be? Oh certainly, I'm a professional, but I suppose the day an actress ceases to feel _any_ nervousness whatsoever is the day her career is over, isn't it? Anyway, it isn't a patch on what _he's_ feeling. I often wonder what it was like for him, growing up with me for a mother... He never mentioned it, but I can just _imagine_ how many questions he must've been asked all throughout school. Why, my previous agent once suggested using his classmates as a _publicity stunt_, can you imagine that? Sometimes I do wonder whether that had something to do with why he seemed to have so few friends... he worried that any friends he didhave might be turned into agents for entertainment, or that they'd be intimidated in some way... But of course, I'm rambling. And never mind the time he attempted to get headlines out of that time when he went missing...

Oh, dear, I promised myself I wouldn't cry... sad thoughts, sad thoughts...

Ah... there we are. Non-waterproof mascara is such a pain. I'm very sorry.

Sometimes, you see, it takes incidents like that for you to understand what's really going on. Your family and the public... they're not the same thing at all, you see. You can't _schedule_ a child... Yes, I do remember that_ I _was on television at the time, dear, but it _was_ a television Appeal; I was trying to _contact my_ _son._ We took great pains to keep Chris out of the media as much as possible. Honestly, I have _never_ used Chris as a source of publicity and I never shall. I know reporters far too well. Luckily for me, I've never had much trouble with Chris and reporters. He's never been the type to play off of his family's credibility... He takes after his father, you know.

...Oh, no offence intended, dear. Station Square News has so much more tact than those tabloid anarchists. Certainly, I'll give you his details once the interview is over, the man could _use_ a few more questions about his reliability, honestly, I don't know why I ever hired him...

At any rate, I really must go, I'm sure you have many other people to speak with. Ah... the other parents have asked me, by the way, if you would attempt to confine your filming to _outside _of the Stadium... Yes, I _know_ that you're trying to get a headline, but honestly, dear, this is _their _day, not a publicity stunt. I've had plenty of those in my time...

Thank you, I do appreciate it... Ah... no, I'm afraid I can't tell you anything about my upcoming return to the film-sphere. I'm really rather busy right now. I'm supposed to be helping out on the buffet table...

... Well_, _it's not every day that your son graduates, is it?

* * *

_I've never been the one to raise my hand,_

_That was not me, _

_But now that's who I am,_

_Because of you I am standing tall... _


	41. Mockingbird

**These are not songfics. Let me just get that fact out of the way right now. They're short stories **_**inspired**_** by songs. I discovered Scribbler doing something similar with the Kingdom Hearts Videogame series, and decided I'd like to give it a shot. **

**This fanfic takes place during the final series, probably sometime just after "**_**Planet of Misfortunate**_**" but before "**_**Teasing Time**_**." It was also quite heavily inspired by a **_**Star Trek: The Next Generation**_** episode, "The Next Phase." It's a long story. **

**Standard disclaimers apply. Reviews and concrit are both appreciated.**

**

* * *

**

_**41. Rob Thomas, Mockingbird.**_

_**

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'Chris...'

Chris looks up from the control panel which he is still trying in vain to touch. His fingers are drifting through the metal and wiring over and over, the way a hologram might. This, it seems, is the crux of their problem, and yet they're unable to make contact with it in order to set things straight. It's very frustrating. 'What is it, Cosmo?'

'I'm confused. Is... is this death?'

Chris jolts upright so sharply that he probably would've whacked his head against the bulkhead, had he not currently been ethereal. 'Death? Cosmo, no, of _course_ not! It'll be okay, I promise, this is just some kind of a technical _mix up_, maybe a chaos phenomenon interacting with our biological systems in...' He trails off, recognizing the look on her face as the one people give him when they haven't the foggiest what he's talking about. 'It's just some big mistake, that's all. As soon as we can work out what's happened to us and how to fix it, we'll be fine.'

Cosmo doesn't seem convinced. Chris can't blame her. 'But... we can't _touch_ anything. Our friends can't _see_ us and don't seem at all aware of our presence,' Cosmo shuffles uneasily where she stands. 'Amy told me once, about creatures called ghosts... being's that used to be made of flesh and blood, but became spirits after their bodies died... Humans tell those stories too, don't they?'

'Well, yeah.' Chris wonders where she could be going with this. While he knows the subject of her mostly-extinct species is a delicate issue, he's also known her long enough now that he's beginning to predict when is a good time to broach the subject and when it isn't. Now... well, okay, not isn't really a good time, but it's still as good as it's going to get. So he adds:

'Didn't your species have stories like that?'

'Not precisely. There are a few old legends about people coming back as very angry strangling weeds, but we never had any need for _ghost_ stories, I suppose.'

'Any need_ for them_?' Chris thinks, wondering how on earth anyone could feel the need to have a ghost around.

'But you don't really think we're...' Chris bites his bottom lip, staring at his somewhat gnawed fingernails. It's a habit he's picked up since they started this whole saving-the-universe thing.

'Well our circumstances seem to suggest as much.' Cosmo says, shivering slightly. 'Death, the way that flesh creatures like you feel it. The body going away and leaving the spirit behind, instead of the other way around... It's just as I imagined it to be when Amy described it, Chris. It's _horrible_.'

She's been listening to too many of those spooky stories, Chris thinks, uneasily. Those implausible tales about ghosts and phantoms and other things which used to be human, but then their bodies died and for some reason, their spirits had not gone with them. They hung around in the air, no longer possessing substance or body. That _would_ seem to describe exactly what had happened right now.

Amy is yelling about the Metarex attacking and waving her hands about in an annoyed frenzy – her left arm slices repeatedly through both their bodies as she paces back and forth, and Cosmo flinches uncomfortable, in spite of the intangibility of the contact. Amy's eyes were red and sore and she looked very much as if she'd been crying. Chris didn't want to think about why. It's as if he's looking at them all from beneath a dreamy haze – as if _they're_ the ones who aren't quite there, rather than he and Cosmo.

'But those are just stories, Cosmo, nothing more. I mean, I've _met_ ghosts before, and trust me when I say that they're definitely nothing like this.'

'How come?' Cosmo asks uneasily.

'Well for one thing, if we were ghosts we'd have scarier teeth, no legs, and we'd be able to take over our friends bodies,' Chris says calmly and then, noticing the _look_ on Cosmo's face at these words, he shuffles embarrassedly and explains: 'It's... a long story, Cosmo. Let's just say that if you ever come across an old statue with funny inscriptions in an old, spooky castle? Then _leave it alone_.'

'Oh... Alright. But I don't think that's going to be much of a problem now, Chris. I can't _touch_ anything anyway...' Cosmo sighs and looks sadly down at her toes. 'Well, at least this way I'm not as clumsy as I was.'

There she goes again with the reminders of his childhood. Sometimes the echoes of his younger self that he sees within Cosmo are uncanny. 'You aren't _clumsy_, Cosmo.'

'Chris the first week we met, I dropped a watermelon on your head.'

'Oh, that wasn't _your_ fault; you couldn't have expected Cream to be messing around with the butter when she picked it up and for it to slip out of your hands like...' Chris stops, realising that the watermelon really isn't important right now. 'Look, Cosmo, none of that's important right now, see? What's important is that we get this fixed and get ourselves back to normal. The answer's got to be here.'

'I know...' Cosmo is standing in front of Knuckles now, and he is staring right through her, as if she isn't there. Understandable. To him, she _isn't_. She waves her hand experimentally in front of the Echidna's face, and flinches when he shifts and turns away.

They're dead, and yet she's _still_ nervous about upsetting people...

_Not dead_, Chris tells himself loudly. They're alive, they _have_ to be. This is just a silly mix up because Shadow's powers got all screwed up by that artificial Chaos-based transport system the Doctor is using, while they were inside of it. There's a rational, logical explanation for all of this. They just have to figure out what it is. Preferably before Tails tries to take them out of planetary orbit. They've managed to hang on okay so far, but Chris doesn't want to think what will happen if Tails decides to try taking the _Typhoon_ to light-speed. They'll probably drift right through the walls and vanish into the depths of space, and unlike the rest of them, Chris knows he can't _breathe_ out there.

Cosmo, Chris is starting to notice, does an awful lot of _flinching_ even when she's tangible and visible to everyone. It's as if she wants to fade into the background. And now she actually _has_, and she's finding that it isn't quite as appealing as she might have expected.

He knows he shouldn't make assumptions like this. He's never been an intuitive person; he can't read people the way Amy does, or predict their movements like Sonic. Cosmo, however, is the kind of person who just about anyone can read like an open book... At least in terms of her personality. Her intent and beliefs are buried just that little bit deeper. Deeper than Chris has yet looked.

Perhaps it's time he _started_ looking...

'I just... don't really understand,' Cosmo whispers quietly, and when Chris looks at her again, she is staring straight at Tails; who has an uncomfortable look on his face and is in turn gazing intently at the control panel in front of me, as if trying to force the answers out of it with his brain. 'Beings like you seem strange to me.'

'You mean flesh and blood people, right?' Chris says. 'Are we really different for your kind?'

'No, not really. Not at all, in many ways,' Cosmo's face twitches into an almost-smile. She speaks with the tone of voice of someone who doesn't quite realise how deep the things she is revealing right now go. 'But how people _die_ is very different. I suppose we don't really die at all. Not the way your people do. Our minds and bodies may die, but our spirits are reborn. Like flowers. Like seeds.' She smiles at him faintly, but this smile fades before Chris can return it. 'But when _your_ kind die... it just _happens_, doesn't it? You're here... and then you're not. You don't shrivel up and start growing again. Once you're gone you're gone forever.'

'Well, scientifically, yes, though not everybody believes that,' Chris points out. And then he realises he can't give any examples, since he's not all that sure exactly _what_ he believes himself. Not in anything as simple as heaven, certainly... The universe seems far too complicated to him to end with something like _that_. 'Still, I guess that when people are dead, you can't see them again.'

He knows almost immediately that this is completely the wrong thing to say. Cosmo's face scrunches up in pain. The same pain he saw the first day they met each other, in Vanilla's house back in the safety of the Other Earth. She avoids crying through sheer physical effort. 'Cosmo, I'm sorry I...'

'N-no. It not you. _I'm_ the one who's sorry; it's _my_ fault we ended up like this, if I had just gone with Shadow when he wanted to teleport us in the first place—'

'No. Don't say that. It's not _your_ fault he freaked you out. Heck, sometimes he freaks _me_ out a little, too.' Chris managed a smile. Cosmo didn't return it. 'Look, Cosmo... you shouldn't blame yourself for so much. None of this is your fault.'

'I know.' Cosmo says softly, though she obviously doesn't entirely believe it; most of them have stopped trying to convince her otherwise, because... well, it seems like nothing any of them say can change her mind. They just have to let her get to grips with everything herself, and be there for her whenever she needs a shoulder to cry on, literally and metaphorically.

Maybe in some ways, you just _can't_ help someone get through the grief of experiencing their whole family dying. Not entirely. And Chris can't ever pretend that he understands it. _He's_ only ever lost best friend for as long as it took him to rebuild a portal... Cosmo lost everything forever. Her entire species. Her whole _world_.

Six years without a good friend is _nothing_ in comparison to that.

There is silence for a few moments, except for the strangely distant muttering of Knuckles. He's arguing with Tails as quietly as anyone _can_ argue about something. Cream is nearby and Chris supposes that must have something to do with it. They probably don't want to upset her anymore than she clearly already is; sitting silently in her control chair with Cheese curled up on her lap.

And then there's Sonic, the constantly impossible to read Sonic, standing in a grim faced silence behind them, not offering a word. Chris has to admit that he'll probably never be able to read him as much as he might've wanted to; that Sonic is a mystery to everyone except himself. And maybe Tails...

'I... should have been able to seem family again,' Cosmo says quietly. 'But I can't. Our ship _burned_ Chris; that's the only thing that destroys a Seedrian. There was fire everywhere and... And all of the seeds burned with them. I know they couldn't... _exist_ again the same as they were. I know that their minds were gone but... we were the last of our kind, and now I won't ever be able to see them again in any way. Maybe we won't be able to see Tails or, or Sonic or Amy or Cream or anyone else ever again either. Just... being here with them all like this, Chris... You don't think they'll forget about do us?' She whirls to face him long pained and desperate. 'I couldn't bear it if they never saw us ever again. I... couldn't stand not being real to Tails anymore!'

'They won't _forget u_s, Cosmo,' he tries to say it as gently as he can because he knows, deep down, exactly what those fears are like. The fears of someone going away and leaving you forever; of their disappearing and going on with their lives just as if you'd never existed, never even giving a thought to you...

But those thoughts aren't as bad as this: as always being there, but never being _seen_.

Cosmo is looking at Tails again. She reaches out a hand to him, and shivers as his arm lunges clean through her heart, and carries on without noticing.

Chris sighs, stops trying to pick up a screw driver, and goes to sit beside her, reaching out and curling his fingers around the hand she had reached out towards Tails. Her skin feels cold and dry and very, very real. She's alive, no doubt about it. 'Well...we're real to each other, right?' He smiled. 'We know that much, at least. Now all we have to do is make ourselves real again to everyone _else_. We'll work it out together, okay? We won't disappear the way everyone else you love did, Cosmo.'

Cosmo hesitates for a moment, then slowly curls her fingers around his and manages a small smile.

* * *

_Here we stand somewhere in between _

_this moment and the end. Will we bend? _

_Or will we open up and take this whole thing in?_

_Everybody else is smiling and their smiles don't fade, _

_And you don't even wonder why you just don't think that way._

_Maybe you and me got lost somewhere,_

_We can't move on and we can't stay here._

_Maybe we've just had enough well,_

_Maybe we ain't meant for this love,_

_You and me have tried everything,_

_But still that mockingbird won't sing,_

_Oh man this life seems hard enough _

_Well, maybe we ain't meant for this love..._


	42. You're Not Alone

**This story was initially inspired by another one shot which I wrote a while back, entitled **_**Judgements, **_**however this story does not happen within the context of my **_**Chaos Mythologies**_** series. If you're interested in reading **_**Judgements**_** or **_**Chaos Mythologies**_**, then please check for them on my profile. This story focuses upon Shadow and upon the fake memories he has inside of his head. It's my theory that his creator, desperate to ensure that Shadow was willing to avenge the death of his granddaughter, inserted memories into Shadow's mind atop the ones that already existed – memories to make everything he had been through seem that little bit more cold and unfair. To give Shadow more motivation to fight for Maria. ****Of course, Robotnik failed to take into account a lot of things which might affect the way Shadow thinks... **

**Meh, it's a bit melodramatic but then again, it _is_ about Shadow. **

**This story takes place in some vague, unspecified future AU when the Sonic team is back on earth. **

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_**42. You're Not Alone, Amy Grant. **_

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_**Maria**__ (Mah REE ah) Gender: female. Origin: Hebrew. Meaning: Bitter. _

_Also:_

_Origin: Latin. Meaning: Latinate form of Mary_

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He has learned to live in the moment.

It's the only way creature like him _can_ live, with all that power contained and suppressed in one body. Unlike _some_ people, Shadow doesn't need the Chaos Emeralds to know that he can destroy this person quite, quite easily.

'Please, don't do it... You can't...'

He will. He _can_. He has both the ability and the means. In his hands, he grips the collor of a man who at first, seemed too ld to be who he was. A man with greying hair and frightened eyes.

He has seen those eyes only once before in all his life. When that man killed Maria.

His name is Shadow the Hedgehog. But if no one had thought to give him that name, he would have been known simply as "The Ultimate Life Form". He has to admit _that_ name probably fits him far better than the melodramatic moniker given to him by a little girl (she was nine at the time; he has a clear memory of birthday candles on a cake wrapped in sterilised plastic, because her mother had sent it from earth, and they hadn't had time to decontaminate it before the party) who had thought it sounded "cool" and "dramatic".

Actually, it seems a lot of the things Maria put into his head were supposed to be "cool" or "dramatic". His memory returned slowly, fragment by fragment, after the battle with Dark Oak. Like the time she'd spent two weeks walking around in one of those "fashionable" skirts (a gift from her mother again; two sizes too big for her and held up with elastic) which had looked more like a giant cotton ball, and rustled loudly when she moved; her grandfather had shook his head in amusement every time she entered the room. Or the time when she talked him into climbing into the mystery tank in Grandpa's laboratory to see what was in there (it had turned out to be the prototype bio-lizard), and then spent the night crying and apologising over and over, when he came out with broken bones.

His bones are broken again now, in the present, with all those memories behind him. Sonic's fault. He had come at Shadow at high speed desperate to stop him from completing his self-proposed mission, but he was neither fast nor strong enough to hold Shadow back. When would he ever learn? The pain of the fractures feels the same as it did then, but now Shadow walks straight through it as easily as if the sharp twinge isn't there. It will heal soon enough, provided he comes out of this alive.

The building they are in is burning, the sky is dark, and Sonic is (or rather, he _was_; now he's unconscious outside of the building) trying to stop him. Shadow does not begrudge him that. He knows that Sonic is Sonic, and regardless of what happens, he must always be the person that he is. Heroic, determined, and abjectly willing to fight for the life of anyone, good or bad, right or wrong.

But while Sonic can only be Sonic, Shadow too, can only be Shadow.

Sometimes though, Shadow is not sure who he is.

His memories... _Conflict_. He remembers a day on board the ARK, when the heating and ventilation system broke down and people nearly froze to death in several areas before the Professor could repair the damage. The entire crew had been fine in the end. But in other memories (or rather, other interpretations of the _same_ memory), he recalls that several people had died, their bodies pulled from beneath piles of frozen bed covers, their skin blue and cracked.

On another day Maria caught a cold from a colonist who had been to earth on vacation – for her this had been as good as a death sentence, but Shadow had helped the Professor make her well again within days, using the advanced Heal Units that the Professor had created. In other memories she lies in the hospital wing, white faced and pale for two months, and nearly died seven times over.

In some memories he is a construct for killing and destruction; in others he is a creature created to be a friend, an ally to everyone who showed compassion; he has memories specifically tuned to each aspect of his personality. Slowly, Shadow is learning to choose which of those people he wishes to be – Maria's Shadow, or Professor Robotnik's Shadow.

He understands now why his memories behave this way. He knows that at least half of them are fake, dramatized and melodramatic –and it is simple for him to work out which ones. They are the exaggerated images, constructed and implanted into Shadow's mind by a desperate, bitter old man who had wanted Shadow to behave in a certain way, without question or hesitation.

Shadow isn't sure why the Professor had to be so _thorough_. He had escaped from his earth prison and summoned Shadow to him, then he had picked through Shadow's memories efficiently and carefully as any neuroscientist, exaggerating (poisoning, twisting) every thought in his head ever so slightly. The Professor in these fake memories feels like an exaggerated image too –Shadow cannot imagine that this resentful, sorrowful old man is the same one who held his granddaughter's hand while she had injection after injection, and reminded him to be calm when he broke a test tube in his grip ("like Maria is, see? Hold it carefully, now, be gentle...").

But really, whether the memories within him are true or not is irrelevant. Maria had _been_. Maria hadlived and laughed and sobbed, and bled from the mouth until she died, bravely, with a smile on her face. That part, Shadow knows, was not faked or manipulated in its gruesomeness. The Professor hadn't needed to exaggerate _that_. Maria had died on a cold metal floor, bleeding from the chest and smiling at him; reaching out for him with trembling fingers.

He never saw her die. The capsule ejected him into space long before she must have stopped breathing, and for that he supposed he should be grateful. At least the last memory he has of her is of her smiling through the pain. The Professor had not stooped to manipulating that.

But Maria had died. She had died because of the man whose throat Shadow now holds in a vice grip. Because _he_ killed her.

He doesn't need to pick and choose between his memories. He knows which ones count. The man, whose name he does not know and does not need to know, barely flinches in Shadow's grip. He seems resigned to the fate before him. Resigned to his punishment, and Shadow decides that because of that, he shall have enough mercy to kill the man quickly. A single chaos blast to the heart ought to do it. just enough to draw blood from his mouth, the way Maria had bled.

The door opens through the smoke, splintering and cracking. Somebody staggers into the room, half a shadow, half whole. Someone gasps his name. 'S-Shadow? Shadow, no! Don't...'

Maria's eyes are looking at him through the smoke, from a face which is very much not her own.

'Shadow?' The boy says, half choking on fumes. 'Shadow, listen—'

_Leave, boy. _The voice is unwelcome. Because it isn't her voice, but if he turns around, the first thing he'll see are eyes that echo hers so precisely that it chills him to the bone. To most normal people the similarity is vague, but Shadow has heightened senses, and to him, the resemblance is an uncanny, uncomfortable reminder. The similarity is less vibrant now that he is older, but nonetheless, the eyes are there. The eyes are just as he had expected them to be, had Maria...

Had she _lived_ to be this old. The voice in his mind finishes. But she _didn't_.

'No. You have to leave, before the building burns.' Regardless of his anger, the boy is an innocent. He does not want him to die. 'This is something I have to do alone.'

The man in his grip is no longer looking at him. His face is turned downwards, tense and afraid. The boy reaches out and the hands of a twenty three year old man in a sixteen year old body grip his arm tightly.

'But... But you're not. You're _not_ alone! We're right _here_, Shadow, haven't you worked that out yet?'

'You think that matters?' Shadow snaps, and his voice is loud even over the choking smoke and roaring of the flames. The boy flinches.

'What?'

The flames are rising now, licking against curtains and doorframes, casting the room in a fluttering orange glare. 'You talk like I can trust your words when I can't. You _knew_ who he was, didn't you? All this time, you know. Or your precious grandfather knew. You knew that this is the man who killed her.'

'I... y-yes.' Chris stammers, choking on fumes, and Shadow isn't sure if he's telling the truth or just saying it to appease him. It doesn't matter. Shadow's grip tightens. He imagines the cracking of bones along this killer's neck. 'We're sorry, we should've said we... He's just an old man now, _please_, nobody else has to die.'

'What could you know? What could you possibly _understand_?'

He had not seen the blood, the cold; the memories do not burn in this boy's mind. The similarities are all coincidental and unimportant. There is nothing which can stop him now.

Shadow shifts his grip against the old, still man's throat. There is nothing.

Something glistens in the boy's hand as he holds it up to Shadow's face.

'I understand... this.' the boy whispers.

Shadow blinks, and sees himself. Taking the golden ring, this one and another, out of the boy's hand watching, them glisten as they joined with his body. A grinning golden face. A smiling rose...

There are other memories to call upon. Shadow calls upon them now. He sees a girl with red hair, clutching his hand before flying into the darkness of destruction with a smile for him on her lips. He sees the edge of the universe cast in light and destruction, a rose blooding as it dies. He sees Maria in her Rara skirt, Maria laughing from a hospital bed, Maria crying over his broken bones, Maria's skinned knees, Maria's plastic-wrapped birthday cake, Maria's eyes reflecting back from the face of this boy who looks so much like she did, _Maria, Maria, Maria_...

'_Like Maria is, see? Hold it carefully, now, be gentle.' _

Slowly, as if afraid he might break it, Shadow reaches out to take the golden ring from Chris's hand. He grips it tightly, and looks at the boy's face, coated with dust and ash and memories.

Shadow thinks of memories which are real, and memories which are not real. Either way, everyone who had ever lived on board the ARK is dead except for him.

He sees the Professor, rifling through his memories, scribbling equations on a cell wall in desperate urgency. He sees that frail and lonely man, all alone in his grief and rage. What happened to his grandfather?

Killing this man will not change those memories. Not the ones that are fake, and not the ones which are real either.

Shadow makes his decision, raises the hand holding the golden ring to the burning ceiling, and speaks to words under his breath.

A second later, there is nobody left in the building, as it slowly burns to the ground, taking the last remnants of history with it.

* * *

_The moment that I looked at you_

_I recognized the killing truth_

_You really think there's no way out_

_But if you let me, I can help you now_

_Through all these shattered emotions, there's_

_A lesson to learn... _

_So come on let me hold you closer, _

_Love can sooth what love has burned. _

_You got to remember – you're not alone in this world._

_Always remember – you're never alone. _


End file.
